I posted this is in the "weirdest person met in FLGS" thread but it didn't fit the theme of being weird and more of a horror story.
Spoiler:
I don't know if I would call it weird, but definitely the most irresponsible person I ever met was actually one of the local FLGS owners. My buddy and I came in one Friday to throw some dice around and generally just hang out. The owner was kind of an donkey-cave, but a likable donkey-cave, so we still came to the shop even though most of his player base was moving elsewhere because of him. Anyway, we're playing a game, not another soul in the store when the store owner told us he had to step out for like 15 minutes and asked us to cover the store for him. We had never worked there, but I know how to run a cash register and answer a phone, so it was no big deal to me since it was only 15 minutes.
15 minutes come and pass. We don't think much of it, just assuming he's running late.... a total of 45 minutes pass and now we are getting worried. FNM was due to start in about an hour and people were starting to show up for it. Me and my bud decided if we didn't hear anything from him in 15 minutes, we were gonna kick everyone out, lock the front door, and slip out the back. Thankfully, one of the store co-owners called up looking for the owner and after a very confusing phone call, he came in (quite pissed about it I may add), to cover FNM and relieve us.
By the time the co-owner came in, we had been left there about an hour and 15 minutes unattended, had finished our game 30 minutes ago, and we're trying to awkwardly ensure the Magic players that FNM would be starting tonight on time without informing them that there was no actual employees there. While I have no desire to rob the store blind, it doesn't mean one of them may not jump at the chance. Needless to say, we were pretty much out the door immediately the second someone that actually works there had arrived. He thanked us, we left and I think I've only been back like one time since. But never to play, just to shop. That FLGS finally found the way to encourage even me to not come back.
Which got me thinking, what kinda horror stories have you guys came across in your travels? What made you guys finally stop going to a particular FLGS?
There was a really short-lived game shop about 20 minutes from me. It was an ancient storefront on a decrepit main street of an old steel town. The first time I walked in, there were a bunch of teenagers milling about outside. It was early evening, and there were no lights on in the store, and even though it was chilly outside, the doors were wide open. There was obviously no heat. The only product in the "store" was a small shelf of GW models and another small shelf of used games. The linoleum tiles were crumbling, and there was dirt everywhere.
It was literally like someone woke up one morning and said, "I'm going to open a game store today!"
the_Armyman wrote: There was a really short-lived game shop about 20 minutes from me. It was an ancient storefront on a decrepit main street of an old steel town. The first time I walked in, there were a bunch of teenagers milling about outside. It was early evening, and there were no lights on in the store, and even though it was chilly outside, the doors were wide open. There was obviously no heat. The only product in the "store" was a small shelf of GW models and another small shelf of used games. The linoleum tiles were crumbling, and there was dirt everywhere.
It was literally like someone woke up one morning and said, "I'm going to open a game store today!"
That sounds like a literal "horror story". I was starting to get curious if Scooby Doo was going to show up.
Local FLGS had the sales area on the ground floor, and a play area in the basement. Not a terribly unusual configuration in our area, basements are common and land expensive.
We were playing a game in the basement one evening, went upstairs.... and the store had closed sometime during the our game. The clerk had never bothered to come downstairs and see if anyone was there, much less warn us the store was closing.
Fortunately the owner's phone number was on the list next to the phone (under 'owner', thankfully), and we were able to call them to come let us out so we didn't have to BREAK out.
Vulcan wrote: Local FLGS had the sales area on the ground floor, and a play area in the basement. Not a terribly unusual configuration in our area, basements are common and land expensive.
We were playing a game in the basement one evening, went upstairs.... and the store had closed sometime during the our game. The clerk had never bothered to come downstairs and see if anyone was there, much less warn us the store was closing.
Fortunately the owner's phone number was on the list next to the phone (under 'owner', thankfully), and we were able to call them to come let us out so we didn't have to BREAK out.
Strange does not begin to describe it.
Did the clerk still work there afterward?
If I were the owner I'd be livid if one of my employees locked customers in my store unattended.
No idea. It wasn't my usual game shop, it was one more convenient for my opponent. And the selection of stuff there was pretty dismal so I never went back.
But yes, the owner was pretty mad. She was hosting a party at her house (which was over an hour away to boot...) that night, and she had to leave her husband there with the guests so she could let us out.
So on a guess, I'd say no, the clerk wasn't working there anymore. But it's just a guess.
I think it is pretty certain that he didn't work there anymore. At least around my area, people are always trying to get hired to the local hobby shops. (Who wouldn't want to work where half the job is doing what you love?) It's not like there isn't another 20 people just salivating to take his place.
Was playing a 40k game once when one of the workers there walked by the table and knocked off a bunch of my models with his protruding belly.
As I was working through the shock of seeing my forgeworld models in pieces he told me "You really shouldn't have models that close to the board edge."
I just stood there stupefied that he would consider models that are in *my deployment zone* to be at fault as opposed to hi own carelessness in where he swung his gut.
Its a good thing I didn't have my metal dread in a sock handy or I might be typing this from prison to this day!
Although if I got a few players on the jury I am sure they wouldn't convict
No stories from me. I heard a previous FLGS owner was a drunk head and it all went wrong, and another blatently cheated rules when playing. The newest one has it's issues, but the one owner is sound so makes up for the lazy one.
There is a game store in Cleveland, Ohio that looks like a tornado went through the shop. My older brother lives in the Cleveland area at took me to this game shop when I was in town. As you walk in the front door the first room you enter is just filled with junk and there is a path through the junk that leads you into the back part of the store. Boxes on top of boxes of stuff all the way to the ceiling. It is just a mess, display cases just filled to the top with used models. Nothing has a price on it you just grab it and find the store owner for the price. Then he qoutes you the price which is more then the retail value. I have never seen anything like this store just crap everywhere and tons of it.
Chute82 wrote: There is a game store in Cleveland, Ohio that looks like a tornado went through the shop. My older brother lives in the Cleveland area at took me to this game shop when I was in town. As you walk in the front door the first room you enter is just filled with junk and there is a path through the junk that leads you into the back part of the store. Boxes on top of boxes of stuff all the way to the ceiling. It is just a mess, display cases just filled to the top with used models. Nothing has a price on it you just grab it and find the store owner for the price. Then he qoutes you the price which is more then the retail value. I have never seen anything like this store just crap everywhere and tons of it.
You should go to Gamer's Haven then. That place has tons of OOP models that the owner is just willing to drop prices on (and they're already discounted) if you make a reasonable offer. Store has a ton of stuff, and the owner is pretty cool. Also in Cleveland.
Chute82 wrote: There is a game store in Cleveland, Ohio that looks like a tornado went through the shop. My older brother lives in the Cleveland area at took me to this game shop when I was in town. As you walk in the front door the first room you enter is just filled with junk and there is a path through the junk that leads you into the back part of the store. Boxes on top of boxes of stuff all the way to the ceiling. It is just a mess, display cases just filled to the top with used models. Nothing has a price on it you just grab it and find the store owner for the price. Then he qoutes you the price which is more then the retail value. I have never seen anything like this store just crap everywhere and tons of it.
You should go to Gamer's Haven then. That place has tons of OOP models that the owner is just willing to drop prices on (and they're already discounted) if you make a reasonable offer. Store has a ton of stuff, and the owner is pretty cool. Also in Cleveland.
Chute82 wrote: There is a game store in Cleveland, Ohio that looks like a tornado went through the shop. My older brother lives in the Cleveland area at took me to this game shop when I was in town. As you walk in the front door the first room you enter is just filled with junk and there is a path through the junk that leads you into the back part of the store. Boxes on top of boxes of stuff all the way to the ceiling. It is just a mess, display cases just filled to the top with used models. Nothing has a price on it you just grab it and find the store owner for the price. Then he qoutes you the price which is more then the retail value. I have never seen anything like this store just crap everywhere and tons of it.
Would you be willing to PM me the name of said store? I'm going to be in Cleveland in a few months and I'm curious lol.
As for my own experience, the first store I ever played at was the Hobbytown USA in Mason, OH. We had some real winners playing there, mainly three guys in their mid-30's who you could tell were just real winners. Here's what made them "winners":
- One believed he was a cowboy vampire, and he wore leather bracers, a duster, and a cowboy hat. Dude was like 5'4" and maybe 100 pounds soaking wet. Creepy because he would hiss at people, and showed an odd interest in the high-school aged boys in the store. He was an donkey-cave because he would throw a fit because if his gakky spruecron/Gundam army started to lose, he would throw a tantrum. He (and one of said highschoolers) would write really bad fanfiction set in the 40k universe.
- The next was a nasty guy, he reeked of cat urine and had the social skills of a rock. On more than one occasion, when a friend and I went to go get lunch, this guy would follow us out and try to get in the back seat of my car to go eat lunch with us, all without asking me. He also never even played, he was more or less a very nosy rules lawyer who butted into others' games.
- The last one wasn't ever really there much, but he was the worst habitual liar I had ever met. Dude claimed to have been in the Marines, that he owned a 50k point Tyranid army that his mom "threw away" when he joined the Corps, and finally that his family was some odd religion (that I had never heard of), and that he was worshiped as their deity. Right before he left town for a while, he actually got an assault charge against him for smacking the crap out of one of the younger kids that was playing at the time. Not sure if that's why he left.
Thank god I found a real store to play at though, I'm not sure how much more of that place I could have taken. I can't tell you how many times a kid would walk by, grab one of my figures that I was modeling/painting, and they'd drop it on the floor and then bolt to their parents.
There used to be a game store in Naperville called Game Warden which was located about two blocks away from the college and downtown area. They ran a huge vampire game that was pretty much out of control and had hundreds of players that spread all over the downtown and riverwalk area. The town was pretty much looking for any means they could to shut down the store and the game as it was contributing to all sorts of vandalism and townspeople being harassed etc. They didn't have to work too hard as the store owner was incapable of keeping things above board, despite making money hand over fist from the game he hadn't paid his back taxes owed his employees for about 3 months worth of pay, and apparently had been using the game as his private meat market for underage girls. (he was in his late 30s) He also had a hidden bedroom tucked away in the rear of the building where he'd take his underage friends. (serious creeper style)
I was at the store card gaming with one of my friends who worked there when he got a call from the owner saying he was leaving town, he'd knocked up one of the girls, there were multiple warrants out for him and that the store was being seized in the morning. Nobody would be getting paid the wages they were owed so whatever is still there in the morning the cops are going to take, which was his indirect way of saying if you want for your overdue wages you better loot the place.
The whole experience left such a stain with the town that they haven't allowed any gaming stores in the downtown area since (and it's been close to 17-18 years at this point) A bunch of people who were entirely unconnected with Game Warden have tried to open stores but the town keeps denying them business permits. Some stores have opened since but they are all out towards the mall or in other areas well away from the downtown & college.
The more traditional gaming like ccgs and minis that were confined to the store itself were fine and didn't cause any of the disruption. The vampire game that basically devolved into mobs of unruly underage drinking and petty criminals are what doomed that place and the city rightfully looked at the store owner as the ring leader and all around total scum bag.
paulson games wrote: There used to be a game store in Naperville called Game Warden which was located about two blocks away from the college and downtown area. They ran a huge vampire game that was pretty much out of control and had hundreds of players that spread all over the downtown and riverwalk area. The town was pretty much looking for any means they could to shut down the store and the game as it was contributing to all sorts of vandalism and townspeople being harassed etc. They didn't have to work too hard as the store owner was incapable of keeping things above board, despite making money hand over fist from the game he hadn't paid his back taxes owed his employees for about 3 months worth of pay, and apparently had been using the game as his private meat market for underage girls. (he was in his late 30s) He also had a hidden bedroom tucked away in the rear of the building where he'd take his underage friends. (serious creeper style)
I was at the store card gaming with one of my friends who worked there when he got a call from the owner saying he was leaving town, he'd knocked up one of the girls, there were multiple warrants out for him and that the store was being seized in the morning. Nobody would be getting paid the wages they were owed so whatever is still there in the morning the cops are going to take, which was his indirect way of saying if you want for your overdue wages you better loot the place.
The whole experience left such a stain with the town that they haven't allowed any gaming stores in the downtown area since (and it's been close to 17-18 years at this point) A bunch of people who were entirely unconnected with Game Warden have tried to open stores but the town keeps denying them business permits. Some stores have opened since but they are all out towards the mall or in other areas well away from the downtown & college.
The more traditional gaming like ccgs and minis that were confined to the store itself were fine and didn't cause any of the disruption. The vampire game that basically devolved into mobs of unruly underage drinking and petty criminals are what doomed that place and the city rightfully looked at the store owner as the ring leader and all around total scum bag.
Well, after Paulsen's this is kind of anti-climactic.
Years ago, GW used to send promo copies of rules and such before the actual release date. Presumably, the idea was to drum up interest by having a copy available for people to read before the product was available for purchase.
On two separate occasions (one for the Blood Angel's codex and the other for WHFB 8th edition rulebook), I traveled from Decatur (near downtown Atlanta) to Kennesaw (deep northern suburbs) in Friday evening rush hour traffic to take a look at these promo copies. With traffic, the trips took about two hours to get there. On both occasions, the owner's son had taken the promos home to read, and didn't bring them back for over a week.
After the second time, I just stopped going there. Luckily, another store had opened a bit closer, and has since totally eclipsed the first store. Way better customer service.
paulson games wrote: There used to be a game store in Naperville called Game Warden which was located about two blocks away from the college and downtown area. They ran a huge vampire game that was pretty much out of control and had hundreds of players that spread all over the downtown and riverwalk area. The town was pretty much looking for any means they could to shut down the store and the game as it was contributing to all sorts of vandalism and townspeople being harassed etc. They didn't have to work too hard as the store owner was incapable of keeping things above board, despite making money hand over fist from the game he hadn't paid his back taxes owed his employees for about 3 months worth of pay, and apparently had been using the game as his private meat market for underage girls. (he was in his late 30s) He also had a hidden bedroom tucked away in the rear of the building where he'd take his underage friends. (serious creeper style)
I was at the store card gaming with one of my friends who worked there when he got a call from the owner saying he was leaving town, he'd knocked up one of the girls, there were multiple warrants out for him and that the store was being seized in the morning. Nobody would be getting paid the wages they were owed so whatever is still there in the morning the cops are going to take, which was his indirect way of saying if you want for your overdue wages you better loot the place.
The whole experience left such a stain with the town that they haven't allowed any gaming stores in the downtown area since (and it's been close to 17-18 years at this point) A bunch of people who were entirely unconnected with Game Warden have tried to open stores but the town keeps denying them business permits. Some stores have opened since but they are all out towards the mall or in other areas well away from the downtown & college.
The more traditional gaming like ccgs and minis that were confined to the store itself were fine and didn't cause any of the disruption. The vampire game that basically devolved into mobs of unruly underage drinking and petty criminals are what doomed that place and the city rightfully looked at the store owner as the ring leader and all around total scum bag.
So there it was, a Friday night at around 9:30 pm. It was a LAN night when people were bringing their computers down for some serious StarCraft action. Well, StarCraft action is always serious, so it's not out of the ordinary.
Anyway, the music was loud, the lights were half off, and it was generally all good. Then these two guys come to the door.
"Ya, we want to come in and play some free games."
"I'm sorry" spoke the Gord. "The Gamer's Edge closed at 9pm. After 9, it becomes 'The Player's Edge!' Since you're not cute and female, you can't come in. The hottest night club in town is invite only."
paulson games wrote: There used to be a game store in Naperville called Game Warden which was located about two blocks away from the college and downtown area. They ran a huge vampire game that was pretty much out of control and had hundreds of players that spread all over the downtown and riverwalk area. The town was pretty much looking for any means they could to shut down the store and the game as it was contributing to all sorts of vandalism and townspeople being harassed etc. They didn't have to work too hard as the store owner was incapable of keeping things above board, despite making money hand over fist from the game he hadn't paid his back taxes owed his employees for about 3 months worth of pay, and apparently had been using the game as his private meat market for underage girls. (he was in his late 30s) He also had a hidden bedroom tucked away in the rear of the building where he'd take his underage friends. (serious creeper style)
I was at the store card gaming with one of my friends who worked there when he got a call from the owner saying he was leaving town, he'd knocked up one of the girls, there were multiple warrants out for him and that the store was being seized in the morning. Nobody would be getting paid the wages they were owed so whatever is still there in the morning the cops are going to take, which was his indirect way of saying if you want for your overdue wages you better loot the place.
The whole experience left such a stain with the town that they haven't allowed any gaming stores in the downtown area since (and it's been close to 17-18 years at this point) A bunch of people who were entirely unconnected with Game Warden have tried to open stores but the town keeps denying them business permits. Some stores have opened since but they are all out towards the mall or in other areas well away from the downtown & college.
The more traditional gaming like ccgs and minis that were confined to the store itself were fine and didn't cause any of the disruption. The vampire game that basically devolved into mobs of unruly underage drinking and petty criminals are what doomed that place and the city rightfully looked at the store owner as the ring leader and all around total scum bag.
there must be more to this and I must find out. ill have to ask around
The book of Gord! Been ages since I read it. A real epic for all time.
timetowaste85 wrote:I seriously doubt anyone is going to beat Paulsen's post (or is it Paulson? Didn't see how you spelled it).
Yarp.
A couple of ill-fated gaming stores round here. One was based in a broom cupboard in a slightly dingy 'market', a couple of hundred yards from the local GW. I guess the owner was typical in that he made his real profit from MtG and Yu-Gi-Oh, because his tiny, tiny store was always packed out with some kind of tourney of those two, going on. (I don't just mean 'all tables were occupied', I mean 'packed out'.) One day the shop was just shut. I'd heard it was because the owner had agreed to buy or sell the black templars army of some big biker guy. The latter found out that he'd been diddled in some way, beat the owner black and blue, and threatened him never to show his face in the area again. He never did, AFAIK. I heard it second or third hand, so it could all be bullgak (and hence lack of some details) but it sounds dramatic.
The second story is a bit more concrete, though. Arkham Gaming near Larne collapsed after some staff, club members, and 'webmaster' tried to perform some kind of bizarre coup from the owner, locking him out of his own website and shop orders, and even threatening his b&m shop, which he was forced to lock up and eventually close down. He had a write-up about it online, which would've given some detail, but it seems to be gone now. Fair enough, it was a few years ago. There are still opposing views about, though.
Can't really say I have had a bad store experience, jut with some of the patrons who attend.
First time I brought my then Fiance to a store I used to frequently visit. She is a nerd just like me and enjoys P&P RPG's and some card games, occasionally I can talk her into Wargaming.
She usually avoids game stores due to run ins with creepers in the past. I tried to tell her this place was pretty different and never had much problems and there is usually a fare bit of females who come to play.
So we walk in and start looking around and I usually star try search in the 40k section when we started to over hear a group of guys debating how useless women are unless they show their boobs in TV or movies.
My Fiance just looks at me and I just kind of half smile and sigh in defeat as she goes outside to sit in the car. Never wants to go back into game stores for a while.
Second was a smelly over zealous furry. Who made sure to let everyone know he was a furry and to call him by his true name, every chance he got. No one really cared he was a furry but he made sure to shove that fact down peoples throats and thats when people get annoyed. He was loud and always tried to tell people how to make their characters and what to do on their turns in D&D.
He would always wear these button up shirts with flames on them with a matching tank top underneath. The first layer would be removed at some point in the evening and you could smell him from about 10 feet away.
paulson games wrote:There used to be a game store in Naperville called Game Warden which was located about two blocks away from the college and downtown area. They ran a huge vampire game that was pretty much out of control and had hundreds of players that spread all over the downtown and riverwalk area. The town was pretty much looking for any means they could to shut down the store and the game as it was contributing to all sorts of vandalism and townspeople being harassed etc. They didn't have to work too hard as the store owner was incapable of keeping things above board, despite making money hand over fist from the game he hadn't paid his back taxes owed his employees for about 3 months worth of pay, and apparently had been using the game as his private meat market for underage girls. (he was in his late 30s) He also had a hidden bedroom tucked away in the rear of the building where he'd take his underage friends. (serious creeper style)
I was at the store card gaming with one of my friends who worked there when he got a call from the owner saying he was leaving town, he'd knocked up one of the girls, there were multiple warrants out for him and that the store was being seized in the morning. Nobody would be getting paid the wages they were owed so whatever is still there in the morning the cops are going to take, which was his indirect way of saying if you want for your overdue wages you better loot the place.
The whole experience left such a stain with the town that they haven't allowed any gaming stores in the downtown area since (and it's been close to 17-18 years at this point) A bunch of people who were entirely unconnected with Game Warden have tried to open stores but the town keeps denying them business permits. Some stores have opened since but they are all out towards the mall or in other areas well away from the downtown & college.
The more traditional gaming like ccgs and minis that were confined to the store itself were fine and didn't cause any of the disruption. The vampire game that basically devolved into mobs of unruly underage drinking and petty criminals are what doomed that place and the city rightfully looked at the store owner as the ring leader and all around total scum bag.
Oh, man, I used to shop there as a kid! One possible minor correction, I think there was a store called Cypher games in that location for a couple years after the Game Warden closed. IIRC after a couple of years it moved to near the mall and then closed.
I wasn't doing as much gaming at the time but I remember being on the riverwalk as a high schooler ('97 or so maybe?) and wondering where all the vampires were coming from (IIRC, it they had gotten pretty far from the shop). It's definitely makes it difficult to have a romantic walk when there's dozens of "interesting" folks in vampire gear milling about.
I never did hear why it closed. Thanks for making it all clear.
I was hoping that I could find some stuff from the local paper, but it was back in 95-98 so it was in the hazy pre-internet days. The only article I could find was this and I'm not sure if it pertains to the employee looting or if it were a separate incident.
All I know is that a few months after the last day looting my buddy who'd worked there was in a bind and needed cash so he sold me a massive collection of l5r cards, most of which had been store inventory. Which started me off on my path to running my own mobile card store and I bought and sold l5r stuff while making rounds at regional tournaments, which is how I made my living for about 7-8 years before I shifted over to doing miniatures related stuff. I wish I'd gotten involved with Magic at the time, as I would have made a lot more money.
The store ending was pretty epic, rumor was that he'd split for New Orleans and eventually got picked up down there for messing around with another 14-15 year old, got time both there and more back in IL afterwards. It was probably a pretty light amount of time (1-2 years) as I'd heard about it not that long afterwards.
Somebody (Jim or Tim?) attempted to re-use the location for Cipher Games on the condition that the vampire game wouldn't be allowed but that only lasted for about year or so and they were forced to relocate by the city and re-opened a couple miles away out by the mall. In addition to the social craziness the location was a run down pit and they started getting a major leakage of river water in their basement as they were directly next to it, the village used that to condemn the property and completely shut it down.
The ccg crowd Game Warden and Cipher both drew was awesome as they could have 60 person weekly events, but that also got a lot of ire from the town as it was well past capacity for the store, let alone all the chaos that was going on with their late night Vampire game. It was also the mid-late 90's so Vampire was the scapegoat for all things wrong and evil with the gaming culture, sort of like the anti D&D charge in the 80's. Hard to explain unless you were around at the time, but a bunch of teenage and college vampire goth types running around a very upscale and uptight white suburb was ruffling a lot of feathers. Once Cipher moved it was into a tiny shoe box of a store that was attached to some sort of laser tag place and they only had a single table so it pretty much ended all gaming there, they pretty much switched to just selling comics and special order stuff.
I only went there for the card gaming and mordheim (which had just launched) so I always looked at all the other stuff feeling there like I'd entered some sort of bizarro world.
Sounds like they doomed themselves. Still, it was something of a loss as I don't recall any other local shops (I'm from Warrenville) in the area that had the same selection and play space.
As for LARPers, at the time I had only the vaguest idea of what they were doing and I was annoyed. So, for the rest of the non-gamer folks enjoying the riverwalk it must have been quite the invasion.
Oh, man, I used to shop there as a kid! One possible minor correction, I think there was a store called Cypher games in that location for a couple years after the Game Warden closed. IIRC after a couple of years it moved to near the mall and then closed.
I wasn't doing as much gaming at the time but I remember being on the riverwalk as a high schooler ('97 or so maybe?) and wondering where all the vampires were coming from (IIRC, it they had gotten pretty far from the shop). It's definitely makes it difficult to have a romantic walk when there's dozens of "interesting" folks in vampire gear milling about.
I never did hear why it closed. Thanks for making it all clear.
Warden would have closed no later than fall of 96 as I had my l5r store up and running by gencon summer of 97. I'm not sure what point Cipher had came online but I remember the location was vacant for a while before Cipher moved in and I remember that they had been on some sort of temporary lease, I think Mordheim was released in 98-99? I'd played with a group there but not all of the gangs were released yet so it was pretty early on.
We were playing there one night and it smelled really, really bad and the owner was like yeah that's the river leaking in, and when we looked down the stairwell there was about two and a half feet of brown nasty water in the place. We helped him move some of the remaining stock up to ground floor and about a week or so later the place was finally shut down by the health department due to the water and sewage back up.
I don't remember if Cipher had access to the rear half the building like Game Warden had, the only time I can recall it being used for any events was with the original owner. Had some very interesting and odd memories of that place. I only saw the new place by the mall once or twice and it wasn't worth making the drive just to buy stuff there as Games Plus had way more stuff, a gaming area and more importantly no Pedo staff members.
The owner of Game Warden wasn't the only pedo, there was another 30+ year old working there who was into boy toys. The owner was messing around with 13-15 year olds so they were really young, the employee was fooling around with some 16-17 year olds that were just a hair under legal age or just slightly past. To the best of my knowledge the employee never got busted for it though. It was all pretty gross IMO and the staff change with Cipher was most welcome.
The second story is a bit more concrete, though. Arkham Gaming near Larne collapsed after some staff, club members, and 'webmaster' tried to perform some kind of bizarre coup from the owner, locking him out of his own website and shop orders, and even threatening his b&m shop, which he was forced to lock up and eventually close down. He had a write-up about it online, which would've given some detail, but it seems to be gone now. Fair enough, it was a few years ago. There are still opposing views about, though.
I remember this story, read it either on here or /tg/. If I remember the details right, an employee was trying to turn it into his own private club of sorts, and started enlisting other employees and customers to help him. Made for a very unfriendly environment for newcomers and eventually the guy held the store hostage with the website thing.
Didn't the owner post up the story here once? I distinctly remember hearing his point of view and the stuff the guy did to his website was awful.
easysauce wrote: Was playing a 40k game once when one of the workers there walked by the table and knocked off a bunch of my models with his protruding belly.
As I was working through the shock of seeing my forgeworld models in pieces he told me "You really shouldn't have models that close to the board edge."
I just stood there stupefied that he would consider models that are in *my deployment zone* to be at fault as opposed to hi own carelessness in where he swung his gut.
Its a good thing I didn't have my metal dread in a sock handy or I might be typing this from prison to this day!
Although if I got a few players on the jury I am sure they wouldn't convict
paulson games wrote: There used to be a game store in Naperville called Game Warden which was located about two blocks away from the college and downtown area. They ran a huge vampire game that was pretty much out of control and had hundreds of players that spread all over the downtown and riverwalk area. The town was pretty much looking for any means they could to shut down the store and the game as it was contributing to all sorts of vandalism and townspeople being harassed etc. They didn't have to work too hard as the store owner was incapable of keeping things above board, despite making money hand over fist from the game he hadn't paid his back taxes owed his employees for about 3 months worth of pay, and apparently had been using the game as his private meat market for underage girls. (he was in his late 30s) He also had a hidden bedroom tucked away in the rear of the building where he'd take his underage friends. (serious creeper style)
I was at the store card gaming with one of my friends who worked there when he got a call from the owner saying he was leaving town, he'd knocked up one of the girls, there were multiple warrants out for him and that the store was being seized in the morning. Nobody would be getting paid the wages they were owed so whatever is still there in the morning the cops are going to take, which was his indirect way of saying if you want for your overdue wages you better loot the place.
The whole experience left such a stain with the town that they haven't allowed any gaming stores in the downtown area since (and it's been close to 17-18 years at this point) A bunch of people who were entirely unconnected with Game Warden have tried to open stores but the town keeps denying them business permits. Some stores have opened since but they are all out towards the mall or in other areas well away from the downtown & college.
The more traditional gaming like ccgs and minis that were confined to the store itself were fine and didn't cause any of the disruption. The vampire game that basically devolved into mobs of unruly underage drinking and petty criminals are what doomed that place and the city rightfully looked at the store owner as the ring leader and all around total scum bag.
Wow Paulson... Just wow. I know there are some donkey cave owners out there. I just wasn't expecting an episode of America's Most Wanted. It's gonna be hard to beat that one.
I think Paulson wins this thread unless a certain Dakkanought who's store tried to kill them turns up.....
As for me it has to be Worthy Gaming.
Before Worthies there was only a small GW in my local town and a card gaming shop. Then one day it came, the golden light of a true FLGS. There where many games and within a week our club had formed there. It introduced us to Warmachine, Dark Age, Bolt Action and many more.
Sadly though this age of enlightenment was not to last for just a few weeks after Yuletide things started to go wrong. Orders where not fulfilled. New stock was not replacing the purchased stuff on the shelves. The staff where looking worried.
That Summer the truth came out: The owner had been using the store to bolster his failing painting business and this had been dragging it down. What is more he had also 'borrowed' money from it to fund some holidays in exotic places.
That Summer night we played our last games. I was one of the last to leave but for those of us whom had stayed on unto the final hour was nigh there came a reward: 90% discounts on everything. I walked away with three Dark Age armies and a few other things.
The store was to bite us one last time though: The clubs funds had been held within a safe in Worthies and when the manager and bookkeeper came to collect them they found nothing, not a penny in there of the several hundred pounds that had within there lain. Only an IOU note lay within the barren metal wasteland, unsigned.
This was on top of the hundred or so pounds that the club was already owed. Worthies owner got out of that one by claiming some terrain one of the staff members had generously painted up for us had paid that debt for him. Neither the club nor the staff member whom had painted it where impressed.
As it was hope was to be in sight for Harlequin's (the card gaming store) owner was a friend of our managers and he wanted to expand into TTG's. He took us in and we have been based at Harlequins ever since.
But we have not forgotten and nor will we. Worthies still stands empty to this day, nearly three years later. The old sign still hangs. It is now nought but a wasteland of laminate flooring and white walls.
You mean you knew the business was failing and money was being looted out of it like pirates looting a treasure galleon... and you left your club funds there anyway?
Vulcan wrote:You mean you knew the business was failing and money was being looted out of it like pirates looting a treasure galleon... and you left your club funds there anyway?
I am notthe manager and at that point we did not know how bad things were and nor was there an alternative place to store it. Once it was realised how bad things had gotten... Well, you read what was found.
BrookM wrote:I've heard the story of Worthy before, but never read it in such a flowery way.
Good sir I am glad that your perusal of my post did humour you in some way Just curious, was it from me or someone else?
About a decade ago, there was only one FLGS in my city (that I knew of). I never bought anything there because, well, you just couldn't buy anything. The owner was the only employee there 90% of the time, and he couldn't be bothered to get up from playing Maple Story to go run the cash register.
When I came back from college it was under new ownership, and had much more helpful staff.
Nothing as crazy as others, but when I was younger the seemingly nice FLGS owner screwed me out of a lot of stuff.
I was getting out of MTG and transitioning into 40k and some Mage Knight on the side as there weren't many 40k players in my area at the time, but the store had Mage Knight tournaments.
So, I traded in all of my MTG cards (which was a vast amount) for store credit. Mistake 1.
As 40k was growing and the need for terrain, I made a lot and kept dragging it to the store and back home. The owner said if I didn't mind others using the terrain I could leave it all there. I had no problem, less stuff to carry and might get more people into the game if there was ready terrain there. The store had none of it's own and I could really fill 2 tables with all the stuff I had for terrain. - Mistake 2
The store didn't stay open long after that. I still had around $100 store credit left to spend AND he took all of my terrain to wherever the hell he ended up.
easysauce wrote: Was playing a 40k game once when one of the workers there walked by the table and knocked off a bunch of my models with his protruding belly.
As I was working through the shock of seeing my forgeworld models in pieces he told me "You really shouldn't have models that close to the board edge."
I just stood there stupefied that he would consider models that are in *my deployment zone* to be at fault as opposed to hi own carelessness in where he swung his gut.
Its a good thing I didn't have my metal dread in a sock handy or I might be typing this from prison to this day!
Although if I got a few players on the jury I am sure they wouldn't convict
I hope you got some compensation.
...You did get compensation, right?
He did allow me to use some of the store's flue to fix it..... free of charge of course.
I don't have a horror story about the store owner as much as the store I went to before it closed.
There was a game of 40k going on between a veteran player whom I will call Bob and a new player I will call Jim. Jim was playing Dark angles and Bob was playing Blood Angels in a monthly tournament the FLGS held (was a whole month so some players from out of town could participate). Jim was new and making a few mistakes and Bob was really rubbing it in being salty. It all went to heck when turn three came around and Jim assaulted with his terminators. Jim made some spectacular rolls and Bob made some horrible ones. To make a long story short, Bob lost the majority of his army. Jim made an off color comment (insert menstruation comment here) about Bob and his Blood Angels (the things Bob was saying was worse). Bob came unglued, accused Jim of cheating (which Jim did not do, but Bob was with the fudging of rules to his advantage), and when Jim told Bob to grow up take his turn or concede, ole Bob drew a knife on Jim saying he was going to kill him. Jim told him to go ahead, Bob backed off. The owner meanwhile had been trying to calm everything down, and when Bob pulled the knife, the owner told Bob he was no longer welcome and was banned for life. Bob refused to leave the police were called. Bob was escorted out in handcuffs after flipping a few tables including the one the game was being played on (ironically only Bobs miniatures got destroyed).
That was the second time in the store's history the police were called. The first being when undercovers tried to buy drugs from the store owner in a "sting" operation. The store owner called the police to tell them an unsavory character was in the store trying to buy drugs. Police never came. All because the store owner was part of a weekend bike club, and the police decided they were a hardcore bike gang because they wore leather vests and drove motorcycles.
easysauce wrote: Was playing a 40k game once when one of the workers there walked by the table and knocked off a bunch of my models with his protruding belly.
As I was working through the shock of seeing my forgeworld models in pieces he told me "You really shouldn't have models that close to the board edge."
I just stood there stupefied that he would consider models that are in *my deployment zone* to be at fault as opposed to hi own carelessness in where he swung his gut.
Its a good thing I didn't have my metal dread in a sock handy or I might be typing this from prison to this day!
Although if I got a few players on the jury I am sure they wouldn't convict
I hope you got some compensation.
...You did get compensation, right?
He did allow me to use some of the store's flue to fix it..... free of charge of course.
Jesus, man, I would've had a meltdown.
Then again, I guess it depends if it's FLGS or GW and if there were any others nearby.
NorseSig wrote: I don't have a horror story about the store owner as much as the store I went to before it closed.
There was a game of 40k going on between a veteran player whom I will call Bob and a new player I will call Jim. Jim was playing Dark angles and Bob was playing Blood Angels in a monthly tournament the FLGS held (was a whole month so some players from out of town could participate). Jim was new and making a few mistakes and Bob was really rubbing it in being salty. It all went to heck when turn three came around and Jim assaulted with his terminators. Jim made some spectacular rolls and Bob made some horrible ones. To make a long story short, Bob lost the majority of his army. Jim made an off color comment (insert menstruation comment here) about Bob and his Blood Angels (the things Bob was saying was worse). Bob came unglued, accused Jim of cheating (which Jim did not do, but Bob was with the fudging of rules to his advantage), and when Jim told Bob to grow up take his turn or concede, ole Bob drew a knife on Jim saying he was going to kill him. Jim told him to go ahead, Bob backed off. The owner meanwhile had been trying to calm everything down, and when Bob pulled the knife, the owner told Bob he was no longer welcome and was banned for life. Bob refused to leave the police were called. Bob was escorted out in handcuffs after flipping a few tables including the one the game was being played on (ironically only Bobs miniatures got destroyed).
NorseSig wrote: I don't have a horror story about the store owner as much as the store I went to before it closed.
There was a game of 40k going on between a veteran player whom I will call Bob and a new player I will call Jim. Jim was playing Dark angles and Bob was playing Blood Angels in a monthly tournament the FLGS held (was a whole month so some players from out of town could participate). Jim was new and making a few mistakes and Bob was really rubbing it in being salty. It all went to heck when turn three came around and Jim assaulted with his terminators. Jim made some spectacular rolls and Bob made some horrible ones. To make a long story short, Bob lost the majority of his army. Jim made an off color comment (insert menstruation comment here) about Bob and his Blood Angels (the things Bob was saying was worse). Bob came unglued, accused Jim of cheating (which Jim did not do, but Bob was with the fudging of rules to his advantage), and when Jim told Bob to grow up take his turn or concede, ole Bob drew a knife on Jim saying he was going to kill him. Jim told him to go ahead, Bob backed off. The owner meanwhile had been trying to calm everything down, and when Bob pulled the knife, the owner told Bob he was no longer welcome and was banned for life. Bob refused to leave the police were called. Bob was escorted out in handcuffs after flipping a few tables including the one the game was being played on (ironically only Bobs miniatures got destroyed).
This is insane.
Eh, buddy of mine had a knife pulled on him during a casual game of mtg. He didn't stab him, but he did cut a Ball Lightning to pieces.
NorseSig wrote: I don't have a horror story about the store owner as much as the store I went to before it closed.
There was a game of 40k going on between a veteran player whom I will call Bob and a new player I will call Jim. Jim was playing Dark angles and Bob was playing Blood Angels in a monthly tournament the FLGS held (was a whole month so some players from out of town could participate). Jim was new and making a few mistakes and Bob was really rubbing it in being salty. It all went to heck when turn three came around and Jim assaulted with his terminators. Jim made some spectacular rolls and Bob made some horrible ones. To make a long story short, Bob lost the majority of his army. Jim made an off color comment (insert menstruation comment here) about Bob and his Blood Angels (the things Bob was saying was worse). Bob came unglued, accused Jim of cheating (which Jim did not do, but Bob was with the fudging of rules to his advantage), and when Jim told Bob to grow up take his turn or concede, ole Bob drew a knife on Jim saying he was going to kill him. Jim told him to go ahead, Bob backed off. The owner meanwhile had been trying to calm everything down, and when Bob pulled the knife, the owner told Bob he was no longer welcome and was banned for life. Bob refused to leave the police were called. Bob was escorted out in handcuffs after flipping a few tables including the one the game was being played on (ironically only Bobs miniatures got destroyed).
That was the second time in the store's history the police were called. The first being when undercovers tried to buy drugs from the store owner in a "sting" operation. The store owner called the police to tell them an unsavory character was in the store trying to buy drugs. Police never came. All because the store owner was part of a weekend bike club, and the police decided they were a hardcore bike gang because they wore leather vests and drove motorcycles.
Pulling a knife on someone over a fething GAME!? Come on, is it really worth someone's life? Or getting arrested? It is poetic justice that only Bob's miniatures broke when he flipped the table.
So glad the players at my FLGS are relatively normal and the staff are cool people. No crazy stories like this from me!
Second was a smelly over zealous furry. Who made sure to let everyone know he was a furry and to call him by his true name, every chance he got. No one really cared he was a furry but he made sure to shove that fact down peoples throats and thats when people get annoyed.
I've been relatively lucky. I've of course got the "man stank so bad they had to find a new venue" story that i'm sure everyone has experienced.
Probably the "scariest" time I've ever had in an FLGS was when we had a tornado roll through a couple hundred meters away. Half the store was glass windows, and the couple of minutes of the event were a bit tense. Several cars in the parking lot were crushed by a tree that had been knocked over, but everyone was fine.
Does a store manager using female customers billing info to turn up at their homes uninvited at night count?
Store now closed, but all involved still in the community, so that's as much info as I can share.
Buttery Commissar wrote: Does a store manager using female customers billing info to turn up at their homes uninvited at night count?
Store now closed, but all involved still in the community, so that's as much info as I can share.
Creeeeeeeeeepy. How did the manager think it would turn out? "Oh, I'm so impressed by your amazing subterfuge skills! Let's date RIGHT NOW!"
Buttery Commissar wrote: Does a store manager using female customers billing info to turn up at their homes uninvited at night count?
Store now closed, but all involved still in the community, so that's as much info as I can share.
Creeeeeeeeeepy. How did the manager think it would turn out? "Oh, I'm so impressed by your amazing subterfuge skills! Let's date RIGHT NOW!"
I believe he would turn up with game/book posters of the persons interest (unreleased Merch promotional materials) as an opener.
These days you'd call the police. Back then it was just awkward as feth by all accounts.
Buttery Commissar wrote: Does a store manager using female customers billing info to turn up at their homes uninvited at night count?
Store now closed, but all involved still in the community, so that's as much info as I can share.
Pfft, we just call that having mad game skillz, yo. A restraining oder just means she's playing hard to get!
Never had many horror stories save the occasional assclown that'd throw his models if he lost.
Some of these are plain amazing; especially the one where fatbody just knocked a bunch of gak on the floor and then berated player for 'leaving it near the table edge'.
Yeah, I'm not proud to say it, but there would have been a fight not long after that comment.
FLGS in my hometown (can't mention specifics since it's under new management) had two employees: the owner and a guy who lived with him.
The story goes that the guy tried to steal some MTG cards or packs, got caught, and instead of calling the police and pressing charges, the owner makes him work off the debt as an employee.
Well, that was about 96 or 97. The guy must have tried to steal every Black Lotus ever printed because he worked at the shop for at least 10 years. Some where along the line the employee ended up living with the owner and his family; husband, wife, a boy and three girls.
Seems kinda fishy, but whatever. If the guy wants to be a modern day indentured servant, at least he's getting three hot meals and a bed right?
Not long after the shop moves across town, we start to notice the employee is sporting some fresh bruises and a couple of shiners about three or four times a month. Someone finally gets the nerve to ask him what happened and he claims that he's sparring/boxing/MMA training with the boy. IIRC, the owner's son was into some sort of fighting; karate or whatever. So his story wasn't that far fetched.
As time goes on, this turns into double shiners, broken nose, busted teeth... you get the picture.
Sadly, we often joked that the employee was probably the owner's gimp, but only one of us really knew what was going on.
Years after most of us left town for college, jobs, or career changes my buddy finally tells me what he learned. The owner used to get pissed at the employee and just beat the ever living tar out him on a somewhat regular basis. My buddy went to the shop one day to purchase a copy of MTG Online, back when you could buy the CD to install on your computer. He told me that all hell was breaking loose in the office and no one had noticed he walked in. He quietly slipped back out of the store and stopped being a regular attendee at the place.
Not sure if that's the weirdest part or this is: if you never saw the bruises and whatnot, you'd swear the two were best buddies in an Odd Couple sort of way. They got along with each other, had a good rapport, were always quick with a story to tell.... Looking back, that was the weirdest part for me.
Interesting story about the Game Warden. Moved to Naperville in 1980 and graduated from WVHS in 1984. There was another store that opened shortly after Game Warden closed, and was owned by one of our former teachers, in the center just across from White Fence Farm a little bit further up Washington. Can't remember the name of the store, but Lon got me hooked into MTG for a while (made quite a nice profit when I sold my cards about 2 years ago to a store here in Madison). At least he pretty much kept the skanky Vampire LARP'rs out his store while it was open.
Mostly lurk here without logging in. Just want to say thank you for bringing back some cool memories of learning how to play AD&D in 1980 from all of the kids that Lon got hooked on the game (know it is tangential to the thread, but it is what I 1st thought of when I saw "Game Warden & Naperville").
Not sure if any of you guys would call this a horror story, but one time last summer, I played a game of Orks vs Ravenwing (which I won). However, there was a thunderstorm, and a flash flood warning was issued. We had to wait the heavy rain out before we could leave.
We've had shoplifters try and hide their loot behind the shelfs at our nearest GW. Store security and police came to get the guy... the store was really cramped... quite some stuff got broken as they tried arresting the guy... Flying metal models ensued.
Chute82 wrote: There is a game store in Cleveland, Ohio that looks like a tornado went through the shop. My older brother lives in the Cleveland area at took me to this game shop when I was in town. As you walk in the front door the first room you enter is just filled with junk and there is a path through the junk that leads you into the back part of the store. Boxes on top of boxes of stuff all the way to the ceiling. It is just a mess, display cases just filled to the top with used models. Nothing has a price on it you just grab it and find the store owner for the price. Then he qoutes you the price which is more then the retail value. I have never seen anything like this store just crap everywhere and tons of it.
Would you be willing to PM me the name of said store? I'm going to be in Cleveland in a few months and I'm curious lol.
As for my own experience, the first store I ever played at was the Hobbytown USA in Mason, OH. We had some real winners playing there, mainly three guys in their mid-30's who you could tell were just real winners. Here's what made them "winners":
- One believed he was a cowboy vampire, and he wore leather bracers, a duster, and a cowboy hat. Dude was like 5'4" and maybe 100 pounds soaking wet. Creepy because he would hiss at people, and showed an odd interest in the high-school aged boys in the store. He was an donkey-cave because he would throw a fit because if his gakky spruecron/Gundam army started to lose, he would throw a tantrum. He (and one of said highschoolers) would write really bad fanfiction set in the 40k universe.
- The next was a nasty guy, he reeked of cat urine and had the social skills of a rock. On more than one occasion, when a friend and I went to go get lunch, this guy would follow us out and try to get in the back seat of my car to go eat lunch with us, all without asking me. He also never even played, he was more or less a very nosy rules lawyer who butted into others' games.
- The last one wasn't ever really there much, but he was the worst habitual liar I had ever met. Dude claimed to have been in the Marines, that he owned a 50k point Tyranid army that his mom "threw away" when he joined the Corps, and finally that his family was some odd religion (that I had never heard of), and that he was worshiped as their deity. Right before he left town for a while, he actually got an assault charge against him for smacking the crap out of one of the younger kids that was playing at the time. Not sure if that's why he left.
Thank god I found a real store to play at though, I'm not sure how much more of that place I could have taken. I can't tell you how many times a kid would walk by, grab one of my figures that I was modeling/painting, and they'd drop it on the floor and then bolt to their parents.
Holy ! I played there! I was one of the high schoolers that frequented the shop at the time. I can picture each one of these guys still. The leather bracer guy always gave me the creeps when he was there... Funny fact, the habitual liar (which he was completely) was right about one thing: he did have a nid army. It wasn't 50k points , but I know he had one cause I traded for it before I left for school. Check my sig.
But man, that store was a mess. It was my first gaming store, so I didn't know that there were better options out there. I recently went back this year out of morbid curiosity. The store is still there, but they got rid of all the gaming tables because they were "distracting the customers."
I played at the Hobbytown USA there in Mason once many, many moons ago back when they were still next to Barnes & Noble. It was when GW was doing their road tour for the Armageddon Worldwide Event, so that would have put it in late 2000.
Pulling a knife on someone over a fething GAME!? Come on, is it really worth someone's life? Or getting arrested? It is poetic justice that only Bob's miniatures broke when he flipped the table.
That is kind of what everyone thought. Which is why he received a lifetime ban. To this day no one will play 40k or MTG with him. And "Jim" everyone loves to play against. He always has a good mood and cracks dirty jokes, most of them at himself. Very rarely does he make fun of anyone other than himself or his brothers. Win or lose going against Jim is always a fun game. I will say Bob isn't indicative of the local gaming community where I live. In fact, most of them are some of the most welcoming fun people I have met. When I first started coming into the store they welcomed me in right away. So sad the store closed.
I'm the guy Sinful was talking about who had the knife pulled on him and his card stabbed.
Dude was legit mad at the game because he was losing to one of those old premade World Champ decks. I was wearing him out with a some kind of lightning elemental and he said.
"You tap that one more time and I'm going to cut you and that card"
I looked up. Then I tapped the card. Low and behold he freaking stabs the dang card outta nowhere. Cuts it right in the middle. Lucky for me one of the guys in the shop that day was a local bouncer for the club next to the shop. His butt got ban hammered hard.
I lived in phillipsburg, nj most of my life. The FLGS was called Imagination Workshop.
I was quite involved with miniatures gaming, running a american civil war 15mm johnny reb club, and running what the store gw rep said was "the largest blood bowl league in the north east". Man, we had 32 players, solid players, in that league...
Anyway, the owners were computer program writers, and after so many years(1981-1997) they gave the place up to be full time computer nerds.
In 1999, the owner killed his wife. With a "blunt object". Witch i heard was a small malet.
Mr.Church13 wrote: I'm the guy Sinful was talking about who had the knife pulled on him and his card stabbed.
Dude was legit mad at the game because he was losing to one of those old premade World Champ decks. I was wearing him out with a some kind of lightning elemental and he said.
"You tap that one more time and I'm going to cut you and that card"
I looked up. Then I tapped the card. Low and behold he freaking stabs the dang card outta nowhere. Cuts it right in the middle. Lucky for me one of the guys in the shop that day was a local bouncer for the club next to the shop. His butt got ban hammered hard.
That is insane. Everyone gets mad at a game every once in awhile. I myself have lost a few "One's only" dice to the abyss when I've haphazardly tossed them in frustration. (Never at anyone, usually a nice open corner where no one can get hurt and nothing can get broken.) Yet I've never been "Out for blood" angry. That guy sounds nuts. At least you won right lol?
paulson games wrote: There used to be a game store in Naperville called Game Warden which was located about two blocks away from the college and downtown area. They ran a huge vampire game that was pretty much out of control and had hundreds of players that spread all over the downtown and riverwalk area. The town was pretty much looking for any means they could to shut down the store and the game as it was contributing to all sorts of vandalism and townspeople being harassed etc. They didn't have to work too hard as the store owner was incapable of keeping things above board, despite making money hand over fist from the game he hadn't paid his back taxes owed his employees for about 3 months worth of pay, and apparently had been using the game as his private meat market for underage girls. (he was in his late 30s) He also had a hidden bedroom tucked away in the rear of the building where he'd take his underage friends. (serious creeper style)
I was at the store card gaming with one of my friends who worked there when he got a call from the owner saying he was leaving town, he'd knocked up one of the girls, there were multiple warrants out for him and that the store was being seized in the morning. Nobody would be getting paid the wages they were owed so whatever is still there in the morning the cops are going to take, which was his indirect way of saying if you want for your overdue wages you better loot the place.
The whole experience left such a stain with the town that they haven't allowed any gaming stores in the downtown area since (and it's been close to 17-18 years at this point) A bunch of people who were entirely unconnected with Game Warden have tried to open stores but the town keeps denying them business permits. Some stores have opened since but they are all out towards the mall or in other areas well away from the downtown & college.
The more traditional gaming like ccgs and minis that were confined to the store itself were fine and didn't cause any of the disruption. The vampire game that basically devolved into mobs of unruly underage drinking and petty criminals are what doomed that place and the city rightfully looked at the store owner as the ring leader and all around total scum bag.
I'm curious about the nature of this vampire game, though. Care to elaborate on that?
pejota wrote: FLGS in my hometown (can't mention specifics since it's under new management) had two employees: the owner and a guy who lived with him.
The story goes that the guy tried to steal some MTG cards or packs, got caught, and instead of calling the police and pressing charges, the owner makes him work off the debt as an employee.
Well, that was about 96 or 97. The guy must have tried to steal every Black Lotus ever printed because he worked at the shop for at least 10 years. Some where along the line the employee ended up living with the owner and his family; husband, wife, a boy and three girls.
Seems kinda fishy, but whatever. If the guy wants to be a modern day indentured servant, at least he's getting three hot meals and a bed right?
Not long after the shop moves across town, we start to notice the employee is sporting some fresh bruises and a couple of shiners about three or four times a month. Someone finally gets the nerve to ask him what happened and he claims that he's sparring/boxing/MMA training with the boy. IIRC, the owner's son was into some sort of fighting; karate or whatever. So his story wasn't that far fetched.
As time goes on, this turns into double shiners, broken nose, busted teeth... you get the picture.
Sadly, we often joked that the employee was probably the owner's gimp, but only one of us really knew what was going on.
Years after most of us left town for college, jobs, or career changes my buddy finally tells me what he learned. The owner used to get pissed at the employee and just beat the ever living tar out him on a somewhat regular basis. My buddy went to the shop one day to purchase a copy of MTG Online, back when you could buy the CD to install on your computer. He told me that all hell was breaking loose in the office and no one had noticed he walked in. He quietly slipped back out of the store and stopped being a regular attendee at the place.
Not sure if that's the weirdest part or this is: if you never saw the bruises and whatnot, you'd swear the two were best buddies in an Odd Couple sort of way. They got along with each other, had a good rapport, were always quick with a story to tell.... Looking back, that was the weirdest part for me.
That may just be the saddest thing I've read online in a good while.
Sounds like the guy being beat had some serious problems and no "out". If the genders were swapped, it stops being even remotely amusing.
LFGS horror story, but not the LFGS itself: I was once in central Manchester when City were playing United in some fairly major football event. The match ended whilst our Heroclix tournament was still going on. The store owner just quietly got up and put all the shutters on the windows, and after a short while all hell broke loose on the street outside. People jumping (happily) on police cars, drunks, revellers, you name it.
You've never seen such a deer in headlights moment as the rather gentle heroclix players realising the day they'd chosen to attend the tourney.
Nobody was hurt, and it was pretty amusing looking back. At the time I was scared as I had to go home alone on the train, and didn't much fancy my chances of not getting jumped.
pejota wrote: FLGS in my hometown (can't mention specifics since it's under new management) had two employees: the owner and a guy who lived with him.
The story goes that the guy tried to steal some MTG cards or packs, got caught, and instead of calling the police and pressing charges, the owner makes him work off the debt as an employee.
Well, that was about 96 or 97. The guy must have tried to steal every Black Lotus ever printed because he worked at the shop for at least 10 years. Some where along the line the employee ended up living with the owner and his family; husband, wife, a boy and three girls.
Seems kinda fishy, but whatever. If the guy wants to be a modern day indentured servant, at least he's getting three hot meals and a bed right?
Not long after the shop moves across town, we start to notice the employee is sporting some fresh bruises and a couple of shiners about three or four times a month. Someone finally gets the nerve to ask him what happened and he claims that he's sparring/boxing/MMA training with the boy. IIRC, the owner's son was into some sort of fighting; karate or whatever. So his story wasn't that far fetched.
As time goes on, this turns into double shiners, broken nose, busted teeth... you get the picture.
Sadly, we often joked that the employee was probably the owner's gimp, but only one of us really knew what was going on.
Years after most of us left town for college, jobs, or career changes my buddy finally tells me what he learned. The owner used to get pissed at the employee and just beat the ever living tar out him on a somewhat regular basis. My buddy went to the shop one day to purchase a copy of MTG Online, back when you could buy the CD to install on your computer. He told me that all hell was breaking loose in the office and no one had noticed he walked in. He quietly slipped back out of the store and stopped being a regular attendee at the place.
Not sure if that's the weirdest part or this is: if you never saw the bruises and whatnot, you'd swear the two were best buddies in an Odd Couple sort of way. They got along with each other, had a good rapport, were always quick with a story to tell.... Looking back, that was the weirdest part for me.
Kind of reminds me of a store I used to go to a long time ago.
The store literally only had one worker as far as I could tell, who was there 7 days a week, from 10 AM or so till 10pm or later, every single day. Went there on and off for years and not once did I see any kind of evidence that anybody else worked there. The guy was always behind the desk painting, and seemed to be in a cheerful mood. I just don't know why on earth he was always there. The owner never really worked either from what I can tell other than the higher end "pay rent, order stock" kind of stuff. Apparently the guy ran several businesses in the area and literally ran the store almost as a club.
The guy behind the counter was kind of passive in that he didn't like to argue with people, but I don't think he was being held there against his will, I just never got why the guy was pushing 80 hour weeks at a simple retail job. He's still there too, so he's been there at least 5 years doing this. Who knows, maybe he just loves chilling out at a hobby store all day.
I just never got why the guy was pushing 80 hour weeks at a simple retail job. He's still there too, so he's been there at least 5 years doing this. Who knows, maybe he just loves chilling out at a hobby store all day.
Honestly if the pay was decent (comfortably pays for apartment, food, minis, etc) and it was a low pressure job I'd jump at it. My FLGS is run and staffed by gamers / hobbiests and the one complaint I've heard from them is no time for their own gaming etc..
Fortunately I'm blessed with one of the best game stores as my FLGS the closest I've ever seen to a problem is one of the Staff asking us to watch our language. There were a bunch of twenty somethings there and games were going crazy prompting a flood of WTFs and holy "gack" how did that happen? Type comments going around. No anger, just unnecessary use of expletives. And the only "horror" story is when the roof started leaking at the end of winter a year or two ago ruining a chunk of their stock.
One day in August (I think) , I went to my FLGS to get an imperial bunker (which I painted as an Ultramarines bunker). I had calculated the total (including sales tax) at $35.80. Well, when the clerk rang it up, he said "$35.81". So, I stood there, scared, thinking "What in the feth am I gonna do?" But then, I noticed a Take a penny\Leave a penny box with 6 pennies in it. I asked the clerk "Can I take a penny out of the red box?" and the clerk said "Sure, that's what it's there for." So I did, and went home with the bunker and $0.00.
Thing about it was, I checked my calculations again with an online Sales Tax Calculator (Rate was 8.5%), and I still got $35.80. I'm confused as to why it was $35.81 still.
Looking at this thread, I see you've got scarier stories than I've had.
One day in August (I think) , I went to my FLGS to get an imperial bunker (which I painted as an Ultramarines bunker). I had calculated the total (including sales tax) at $35.80. Well, when the clerk rang it up, he said "$35.81". So, I stood there, scared, thinking "What in the feth am I gonna do?" But then, I noticed a Take a penny\Leave a penny box with 6 pennies in it. I asked the clerk "Can I take a penny out of the red box?" and the clerk said "Sure, that's what it's there for." So I did, and went home with the bunker and $0.00.
Thing about it was, I checked my calculations again with an online Sales Tax Calculator (Rate was 8.5%), and I still got $35.80. I'm confused as to why it was $35.81 still.
Looking at this thread, I see you've got scarier stories than I've had.
Did you take into account any city/county taxes? Some cities and/or counties have been known to have as small as a quarter percent sales tax which sounds about right in your case.
One day in August (I think) , I went to my FLGS to get an imperial bunker (which I painted as an Ultramarines bunker). I had calculated the total (including sales tax) at $35.80. Well, when the clerk rang it up, he said "$35.81". So, I stood there, scared, thinking "What in the feth am I gonna do?" But then, I noticed a Take a penny\Leave a penny box with 6 pennies in it. I asked the clerk "Can I take a penny out of the red box?" and the clerk said "Sure, that's what it's there for." So I did, and went home with the bunker and $0.00.
Thing about it was, I checked my calculations again with an online Sales Tax Calculator (Rate was 8.5%), and I still got $35.80. I'm confused as to why it was $35.81 still.
Looking at this thread, I see you've got scarier stories than I've had.
Did you take into account any city/county taxes? Some cities and/or counties have been known to have as small as a quarter percent sales tax which sounds about right in your case.
Sales tax rate was 8.5%. Maybe I did my math wrong.
bound for glory wrote:You were "scared" over a penny?
How old are you?
One day in August (I think) , I went to my FLGS to get an imperial bunker (which I painted as an Ultramarines bunker). I had calculated the total (including sales tax) at $35.80. Well, when the clerk rang it up, he said "$35.81". So, I stood there, scared, thinking "What in the feth am I gonna do?" But then, I noticed a Take a penny\Leave a penny box with 6 pennies in it. I asked the clerk "Can I take a penny out of the red box?" and the clerk said "Sure, that's what it's there for." So I did, and went home with the bunker and $0.00.
Thing about it was, I checked my calculations again with an online Sales Tax Calculator (Rate was 8.5%), and I still got $35.80. I'm confused as to why it was $35.81 still.
Looking at this thread, I see you've got scarier stories than I've had.
Did you take into account any city/county taxes? Some cities and/or counties have been known to have as small as a quarter percent sales tax which sounds about right in your case.
Sales tax rate was 8.5%. Maybe I did my math wrong.
You didn't really answer my question though. Did that cover all sales taxes? For example, Ohio has a sales tax of 5.75%, but Cincinnati has an added sales tax that makes its 6.75%. Did you miss any local sales taxes?
One day in August (I think) , I went to my FLGS to get an imperial bunker (which I painted as an Ultramarines bunker). I had calculated the total (including sales tax) at $35.80. Well, when the clerk rang it up, he said "$35.81". So, I stood there, scared, thinking "What in the feth am I gonna do?" But then, I noticed a Take a penny\Leave a penny box with 6 pennies in it. I asked the clerk "Can I take a penny out of the red box?" and the clerk said "Sure, that's what it's there for." So I did, and went home with the bunker and $0.00.
Thing about it was, I checked my calculations again with an online Sales Tax Calculator (Rate was 8.5%), and I still got $35.80. I'm confused as to why it was $35.81 still.
Looking at this thread, I see you've got scarier stories than I've had.
Did you take into account any city/county taxes? Some cities and/or counties have been known to have as small as a quarter percent sales tax which sounds about right in your case.
Sales tax rate was 8.5%. Maybe I did my math wrong.
You didn't really answer my question though. Did that cover all sales taxes? For example, Ohio has a sales tax of 5.75%, but Cincinnati has an added sales tax that makes its 6.75%. Did you miss any local sales taxes?
State tax was 6.25%. Local tax was 2.25%. That adds up to 8.5%.
The guy behind the counter was kind of passive in that he didn't like to argue with people, but I don't think he was being held there against his will, I just never got why the guy was pushing 80 hour weeks at a simple retail job. He's still there too, so he's been there at least 5 years doing this. Who knows, maybe he just loves chilling out at a hobby store all day.
Some people have very simple requirements for what they want out of life. If the job lets him do what he really enjoys doing (painting, getting to indulge his interests on the hobby side, whatever it is) pays him enough for whatever he feels he needs, and then I'd say he's found himself a good place.
I'm curious about the nature of this vampire game, though. Care to elaborate on that?
They ran the White Wolf Vampire rpg as a LARP style event (live action role playing) basically all the various players would dress up and act as their characters. They had some sort badge for stats and using powers, combat was handled by some sort of rock paper scissors mechanic. At least that's how it was supposed to be handled. Normally players are restricted to the property or venue where the LARP events are being run. That became a large part of why things went wrong, the players would wander all over the downtown and college area far away from the store. There were some incidents where they got in minor fights with non gamer people who were shopping in the area or going to the various bars (there's a ton of them in the area). Even though the game was supposed to be completely void of any weapons some of the players showed up with actual knives and swords which was potentially very dangerous, I heard that somebody had even brought a gun to one game although it was never proven.
Players would pay the store a club fee each night they wanted to play, usually $10 but I think they ended up charging $15-$20 if they had a keg night and drinks. They'd regularly have as many as 150-200 players attending on a given night even during the week and the weekend games were crazy big. (the store had a capacity of maybe 25-30 people at best and they were at minimum drawing a 100+ people nightly) The store owner was the main organizer and of course installed himself as the central vampire figure in the game, a couple of his friends and employees were also similarly involved with the game. They often have 2-3 games going on at the same time so it was a complete mess to try and keep track of.
The game largely devolved into more of an excuse for college frat type partying, except it was all vampire looking kids. There were kegs and alcohol being brought in by the owner or the owners friends even though the majority of the people there were high school age or at most early college, so they were illegally providing for under age kids. (The college kids that were legal age were out drinking at the regular bars that were only a block away). This became a major issue as the police ended up picking up drunk kids as young as 13 who were present and drinking or doing other things at these events. (The drinking also led to the situation with the owner having an arrest warrant issued for knocking up a 15 year old)
Some of the kids got strangely aggressive with their vampire personas, I had a couple instances where a few of them were trying to harass me in the parking lot as I was going into the store for card events. I was like WTF? and settled that pretty fast as I wasn't going to take crap from highschool kids (I was 24-25 at the time and teaching at a martial arts school) grabbed one of them by the neck and held him with a pressure point jab until he peed himself in front of his friends, I guess they can't keep acting like a tough scary vampire when their combat boots are swimming with their own piss.
The other people in town are the typical rich, uptight, white suburban fare and had no clue what was going on so it probably looked like a complete madhouse had descended on the store.
Despite having a college smack in the middle of it Naperville is a bit of an upscale money town and as a result they like to have a very clean image, there's plenty of upscale bars, coffee shops and wine boutiques etc all crammed into their downtown area which is two blocks away from the college so it can lead to some interesting and strange interactions between the kids and the adults. Back in the late 90's the vampire/goth crowd was something that the town decidedly did not want to embrace and they wanted it gone as it was viewed as being a haven for weirdos, freaks, etc. Over the last couple years the party scene in Naperville has shifted heavily to Heroin and heavy weight drugs, bored rich kids with no supervision.
A lot of it wasn't anything you wouldn't find going on with other group of drunk partying teenagers, but because they stuck out visually it draw more ire from the police and local township. I didn't have any real interest in LARPing so I was only vaguely aware of the stuff going on in the background but I was later filled in by my friend Russ who was working at the store at the time it closed down.
The worst I have had to deal with was the usual passive aggressive a**hole. This guy always looked down on everyone and had these snide underhanded comments. He was super annoying but he never really got more hostile than this.
From a store perspective, to the outside eye the old game shop I used to go to was kind of messy. The trash was overflowing with pizza boxes, and it was more of a club than a store. I loved the place though, and the owner was an awesome guy. Really sad when it closed.
I used to manage a local game store in northern NJ. It's not around anymore. Long story, but it boils down to a disagreement between the owners (I was the manager, and didn't own any of the business) that led to some questionable financial decisions that led to the store going belly-up.
Anyhow, there are SO many horror stories about awful owners & managers, but customers definitely generate their own healthy share.
Here's one of my favorites:
We had the GW Bitz Wagon (or whatever it was called) come to our store for this big event. They brought; multiple GW employees, the old Outrider program guys, a huge selection of bits for purchase, an 18x6 scenery setup that was the Gates of Terra, and all this cool stuff. It was amazing. We moved all of our gaming tables out of the way, set up the entire store to accommodate the big scenery table. We had something like 60 players come to the shop to play on it or watch. Imperials vs Chaos.
The scenery was unbelievable; the level of quality you'd see at a Games Day display; lights, water effects, movable doors, the whole nine yards. The Gates of Terra display had these huge towers flanking the gates themselves. Stood up maybe 18 inches off the tabletop. On the tops of them were these communication towers; kind of looked like old-timey radio towers, but all 40K-ified. Beautiful.
So, what makes this a horror story, you ask? Sounds like a fun event, you say? Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong..... Because we haven't talked about the folks who showed up to participate. Oh Lord, save us from the wrath & stupidity of the slack-jawed, chromosomally-challenged, super-fan troglodytes who showed up that day.
This little trio of dudes showed up. Guessing they were father and sons. One was like 55ish, the other two were maybe in their late teens. All three were dressed in matching military surplus fatigues. Urban camo, hats, jungle boots, the whole shebang. No idea where they were from, but we never saw them before or after. These guys were the worst. The oldest one kept shouting at the top of his lungs, just as excited as he could possibly be. I mean, if the guy had wet his pants in excitement, not a soul would have been surprised.
These three kept talking in "Imperial Guard speak".... they were like bad extras from a Gaunt's Ghost novel. Anytime one of the other guys, from the Chaos side, said anything jokey about how the Imperials were going to lose, these three nimrods would get in his face, shouting about the Emperor, about how Horus was this-or-that-expletive, and how they (the other players) were traitors and rebels and sons-a-goats for forsaking humanity in its time of need.
My hand to God, these dudes were basically using our event to do some sort of half-baked Crappy Guardsman LARP. LOL. Or maybe there was a 40K-themed Backyard Wrestling tag-team tryout happening nearby, and these guys left early to come attend my store's event.
So, the event starts, and our local GW rep gets the table set up to start deployment. Someone asks a perfectly reasonable question about where things can be deployed. The GW rep says simply "Anywhere within your deployment zone; if the model fits, it can be deployed there.". All seems good. 57 out of 60 attendees understand perfectly what that means.
Of course our intrepid band of reality-denying mental giants does not understand. How could they? Between chest-bumping each other while shouting "Cadia! F&*# Yeah!!" and screaming "You chaos scum want some of THIS?!?" while jabbing fingers into the chests of the other players, they just didn't have time to pay attention.
The deployment phase starts. Chaos goes first. Everything goes smoothly.
Imperial goes second. Everyone else places models on the board in a reasonable adult-human-being type manner. Now our three "heroes" go. They wait until last, to squeeze maximum advantage out of their placement. "Dad" starts shouting things like "Show them the full might of the IMPERIAL WAR MACHINE, BOYS!!" and unpacking these awfully painted Basilisks and Leman Russes.
But there's no room to deploy them. Because they waited too long, and now all the real estate outside the Gates of Terra is taken. They have to put their tanks inside the walls, where they won't be able to fire on anything.
So, without even hesitating, these champions start grabbing the terrain features on top of the walls surrounding the Gates, and begin snapping them off. To make room to balance their fifteen or so tanks on top of the walls.
Let me repeat that, in case it sounds too absurd: They start snapping off the cool sculpted radio towers, the 'Eavy Metal painted guardsmen minis, the flags with the imperial eagle on them, all of it.
This happens in about 10 seconds. Snap snap snap. Break break break. Crumple, twist, crunch. Just ruining this beautiful scenery table. Little twists of broken plastic popping off, bouncing across the table.
We all stare on in horror. The GW guys looked like they wanted to choke these guys to death. No one knows how to react at first. I mean, what do you do in a situation like that? It takes a minute or two to even process it.
Then our three noble paragons of imperial virtue start precariously balancing their tanks atop the walls. Just totally pleased with themselves, with how they've given their side the edge. They high-five each other and start gloating, explaining to the Chaos players how all traitors can now apply oral suction to the nether regions of tremendously endowed Imperial heroes.
Like ten minutes later, they were on the sidewalk outside the store, with all their models & cases lying in a heap at their feet, confused as to why they'd been ejected from the event, demanding a refund of their entry fee, and screaming about how we should reimburse them for the gas money they'd spent to drive to our shop.
Well, I mean they needed line of sight for their Leman Russes & Basilisks. And in their minds, they were justified in doing what they did, I guess.... LOL
The running joke after that incident was that we should make baseball caps that have a basilisk mounted on them. That way the tanks always has line of sight, and no one needs to break the terrain.
Earlier this year at one of the local shops they where hosting a xwing store championship. The gaming area at this local shop is under a pizza restaurant which is very handy when your hungry. During the event a young man next to me got covered in soda pop that started gushing from the ceiling. I guess the line that ran to the pop machine in the pizza shop above ruptured spilling gallons of pop.
Ulf wrote: Well, I mean they needed line of sight for their Leman Russes & Basilisks. And in their minds, they were justified in doing what they did, I guess.... LOL
The running joke after that incident was that we should make baseball caps that have a basilisk mounted on them. That way the tanks always has line of sight, and no one needs to break the terrain.
Ulf wrote: Well, I mean they needed line of sight for their Leman Russes & Basilisks. And in their minds, they were justified in doing what they did, I guess.... LOL
The running joke after that incident was that we should make baseball caps that have a basilisk mounted on them. That way the tanks always has line of sight, and no one needs to break the terrain.
Honestly I'd rather have another knife pulled on me than have my models broken. First snap and me and daddy dearest would'a rolled.
Now for another one. Working in a game store was a ton of fun and the after hours games were honestly some of the best times of my life. Well, until one of the players got a little miffed at his dice rolling poorly and chucked one so hard at the metal security gate that it was reduced to mostly powder and fragments. He was no small dude and the thing went off like a Chessex brand hand grenade.
They didn't demolish the entire display, or make it unplayable or anything... just systematically snapped off all the little scenic bits on top of the walls, to make room for their tanks.
It was something, all right. I have some pictures of that event somewhere, before everyone started playing. I'll try and dig them up, add them to my first post.
Chute82 wrote:The gaming area at this local shop is under a pizza restaurant which is very handy when your hungry. During the event a young man next to me got covered in soda pop that started gushing from the ceiling.
Then I loled.
Mr.Church13 wrote:Well, until one of the players got a little miffed at his dice rolling poorly and chucked one so hard at the metal security gate that it was reduced to mostly powder and fragments.
I used to go to a club that had a guy who did that for fun.
Used to.
Ulf wrote:I'll try and dig them up, add them to my first post.
I'd very much like to see those, but would it be easier to stick them in your next post? Or both.
I used to manage a local game store in northern NJ. It's not around anymore. Long story, but it boils down to a disagreement between the owners (I was the manager, and didn't own any of the business) that led to some questionable financial decisions that led to the store going belly-up.
Anyhow, there are SO many horror stories about awful owners & managers, but customers definitely generate their own healthy share.
Here's one of my favorites:
We had the GW Bitz Wagon (or whatever it was called) come to our store for this big event. They brought; multiple GW employees, the old Outrider program guys, a huge selection of bits for purchase, an 18x6 scenery setup that was the Gates of Terra, and all this cool stuff. It was amazing. We moved all of our gaming tables out of the way, set up the entire store to accommodate the big scenery table. We had something like 60 players come to the shop to play on it or watch. Imperials vs Chaos.
The scenery was unbelievable; the level of quality you'd see at a Games Day display; lights, water effects, movable doors, the whole nine yards. The Gates of Terra display had these huge towers flanking the gates themselves. Stood up maybe 18 inches off the tabletop. On the tops of them were these communication towers; kind of looked like old-timey radio towers, but all 40K-ified. Beautiful.
So, what makes this a horror story, you ask? Sounds like a fun event, you say? Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong..... Because we haven't talked about the folks who showed up to participate. Oh Lord, save us from the wrath & stupidity of the slack-jawed, chromosomally-challenged, super-fan troglodytes who showed up that day.
This little trio of dudes showed up. Guessing they were father and sons. One was like 55ish, the other two were maybe in their late teens. All three were dressed in matching military surplus fatigues. Urban camo, hats, jungle boots, the whole shebang. No idea where they were from, but we never saw them before or after. These guys were the worst. The oldest one kept shouting at the top of his lungs, just as excited as he could possibly be. I mean, if the guy had wet his pants in excitement, not a soul would have been surprised.
These three kept talking in "Imperial Guard speak".... they were like bad extras from a Gaunt's Ghost novel. Anytime one of the other guys, from the Chaos side, said anything jokey about how the Imperials were going to lose, these three nimrods would get in his face, shouting about the Emperor, about how Horus was this-or-that-expletive, and how they (the other players) were traitors and rebels and sons-a-goats for forsaking humanity in its time of need.
My hand to God, these dudes were basically using our event to do some sort of half-baked Crappy Guardsman LARP. LOL. Or maybe there was a 40K-themed Backyard Wrestling tag-team tryout happening nearby, and these guys left early to come attend my store's event.
So, the event starts, and our local GW rep gets the table set up to start deployment. Someone asks a perfectly reasonable question about where things can be deployed. The GW rep says simply "Anywhere within your deployment zone; if the model fits, it can be deployed there.". All seems good. 57 out of 60 attendees understand perfectly what that means.
Of course our intrepid band of reality-denying mental giants does not understand. How could they? Between chest-bumping each other while shouting "Cadia! F&*# Yeah!!" and screaming "You chaos scum want some of THIS?!?" while jabbing fingers into the chests of the other players, they just didn't have time to pay attention.
The deployment phase starts. Chaos goes first. Everything goes smoothly.
Imperial goes second. Everyone else places models on the board in a reasonable adult-human-being type manner. Now our three "heroes" go. They wait until last, to squeeze maximum advantage out of their placement. "Dad" starts shouting things like "Show them the full might of the IMPERIAL WAR MACHINE, BOYS!!" and unpacking these awfully painted Basilisks and Leman Russes.
But there's no room to deploy them. Because they waited too long, and now all the real estate outside the Gates of Terra is taken. They have to put their tanks inside the walls, where they won't be able to fire on anything.
So, without even hesitating, these champions start grabbing the terrain features on top of the walls surrounding the Gates, and begin snapping them off. To make room to balance their fifteen or so tanks on top of the walls.
Let me repeat that, in case it sounds too absurd: They start snapping off the cool sculpted radio towers, the 'Eavy Metal painted guardsmen minis, the flags with the imperial eagle on them, all of it.
This happens in about 10 seconds. Snap snap snap. Break break break. Crumple, twist, crunch. Just ruining this beautiful scenery table. Little twists of broken plastic popping off, bouncing across the table.
We all stare on in horror. The GW guys looked like they wanted to choke these guys to death. No one knows how to react at first. I mean, what do you do in a situation like that? It takes a minute or two to even process it.
Then our three noble paragons of imperial virtue start precariously balancing their tanks atop the walls. Just totally pleased with themselves, with how they've given their side the edge. They high-five each other and start gloating, explaining to the Chaos players how all traitors can now apply oral suction to the nether regions of tremendously endowed Imperial heroes.
Like ten minutes later, they were on the sidewalk outside the store, with all their models & cases lying in a heap at their feet, confused as to why they'd been ejected from the event, demanding a refund of their entry fee, and screaming about how we should reimburse them for the gas money they'd spent to drive to our shop.
True story.
If this story is true, most blame rests squarely on the store and GW staff running the event. Even if it's in "good fun", being absurdly bombastic, using foul language, or intimidating other players requires a private chat with the offending parties. They can either dial it back a few notches, or their entry fee will be refunded and they'll be asked to leave. I understand that GW encourages some of this buffoonery, but even they have to understand where a line has been crossed.
People forget that an average game of 40K probably has about $1000 worth of minis on the tabletop. Let's not even try to quantify the hours involved in painting two tabletop standard armies. A big game may have models totaling the cost of an automobile and years of man-hours spent on hobbying. A certain amount of decorum and respect have to be present at large games, and that's the staff's job to enforce.
I used to manage a local game store in northern NJ. It's not around anymore. Long story, but it boils down to a disagreement between the owners (I was the manager, and didn't own any of the business) that led to some questionable financial decisions that led to the store going belly-up.
Anyhow, there are SO many horror stories about awful owners & managers, but customers definitely generate their own healthy share.
Here's one of my favorites:
We had the GW Bitz Wagon (or whatever it was called) come to our store for this big event. They brought; multiple GW employees, the old Outrider program guys, a huge selection of bits for purchase, an 18x6 scenery setup that was the Gates of Terra, and all this cool stuff. It was amazing. We moved all of our gaming tables out of the way, set up the entire store to accommodate the big scenery table. We had something like 60 players come to the shop to play on it or watch. Imperials vs Chaos.
The scenery was unbelievable; the level of quality you'd see at a Games Day display; lights, water effects, movable doors, the whole nine yards. The Gates of Terra display had these huge towers flanking the gates themselves. Stood up maybe 18 inches off the tabletop. On the tops of them were these communication towers; kind of looked like old-timey radio towers, but all 40K-ified. Beautiful.
So, what makes this a horror story, you ask? Sounds like a fun event, you say? Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong..... Because we haven't talked about the folks who showed up to participate. Oh Lord, save us from the wrath & stupidity of the slack-jawed, chromosomally-challenged, super-fan troglodytes who showed up that day.
This little trio of dudes showed up. Guessing they were father and sons. One was like 55ish, the other two were maybe in their late teens. All three were dressed in matching military surplus fatigues. Urban camo, hats, jungle boots, the whole shebang. No idea where they were from, but we never saw them before or after. These guys were the worst. The oldest one kept shouting at the top of his lungs, just as excited as he could possibly be. I mean, if the guy had wet his pants in excitement, not a soul would have been surprised.
These three kept talking in "Imperial Guard speak".... they were like bad extras from a Gaunt's Ghost novel. Anytime one of the other guys, from the Chaos side, said anything jokey about how the Imperials were going to lose, these three nimrods would get in his face, shouting about the Emperor, about how Horus was this-or-that-expletive, and how they (the other players) were traitors and rebels and sons-a-goats for forsaking humanity in its time of need.
My hand to God, these dudes were basically using our event to do some sort of half-baked Crappy Guardsman LARP. LOL. Or maybe there was a 40K-themed Backyard Wrestling tag-team tryout happening nearby, and these guys left early to come attend my store's event.
So, the event starts, and our local GW rep gets the table set up to start deployment. Someone asks a perfectly reasonable question about where things can be deployed. The GW rep says simply "Anywhere within your deployment zone; if the model fits, it can be deployed there.". All seems good. 57 out of 60 attendees understand perfectly what that means.
Of course our intrepid band of reality-denying mental giants does not understand. How could they? Between chest-bumping each other while shouting "Cadia! F&*# Yeah!!" and screaming "You chaos scum want some of THIS?!?" while jabbing fingers into the chests of the other players, they just didn't have time to pay attention.
The deployment phase starts. Chaos goes first. Everything goes smoothly.
Imperial goes second. Everyone else places models on the board in a reasonable adult-human-being type manner. Now our three "heroes" go. They wait until last, to squeeze maximum advantage out of their placement. "Dad" starts shouting things like "Show them the full might of the IMPERIAL WAR MACHINE, BOYS!!" and unpacking these awfully painted Basilisks and Leman Russes.
But there's no room to deploy them. Because they waited too long, and now all the real estate outside the Gates of Terra is taken. They have to put their tanks inside the walls, where they won't be able to fire on anything.
So, without even hesitating, these champions start grabbing the terrain features on top of the walls surrounding the Gates, and begin snapping them off. To make room to balance their fifteen or so tanks on top of the walls.
Let me repeat that, in case it sounds too absurd: They start snapping off the cool sculpted radio towers, the 'Eavy Metal painted guardsmen minis, the flags with the imperial eagle on them, all of it.
This happens in about 10 seconds. Snap snap snap. Break break break. Crumple, twist, crunch. Just ruining this beautiful scenery table. Little twists of broken plastic popping off, bouncing across the table.
We all stare on in horror. The GW guys looked like they wanted to choke these guys to death. No one knows how to react at first. I mean, what do you do in a situation like that? It takes a minute or two to even process it.
Then our three noble paragons of imperial virtue start precariously balancing their tanks atop the walls. Just totally pleased with themselves, with how they've given their side the edge. They high-five each other and start gloating, explaining to the Chaos players how all traitors can now apply oral suction to the nether regions of tremendously endowed Imperial heroes.
Like ten minutes later, they were on the sidewalk outside the store, with all their models & cases lying in a heap at their feet, confused as to why they'd been ejected from the event, demanding a refund of their entry fee, and screaming about how we should reimburse them for the gas money they'd spent to drive to our shop.
True story.
Man I think we had a similar event at a store I went to, did it include a Warhound titan for the Imperials and some kind of massive crawler on the Chaos side?
Yeah, it did. A big chaos super-tank that was made of like 6 Land Raiders all combined together, with a chaos guy standing on a stage on top, speaking into a microphone, something like that.....
@the Armyman; couldn't agree more. The guys were asked to tone it down, cool it, etc... but the GW staff and the LGS owner didn't want to kick them out. I suppose the thinking was that once the game started for real, they'd settle down.
@Ulf; I've played against somebody like that. He had the full imperial guard jacket. Had a guard pocket primer in the inside pocket. Very passionately gave his orders during the game to his troops. I play CSM, so I think playing against me gave him a bit of a nerd boner. Basically every turn proudly praising himself how he is cleansing the chaos filth and praising the Emperor. Except unlike the players you described. He was very pleasant, just a little weird. All in all, the game was a blast. Sounds like you got the all the RP crazy in 3 convenient packages.
Oh sweet merciful emperor, I could feel my jibblies lurching into my chest cavity at the part about snapping off pieces. I don't think for a second I could have held myself back from tackling one of these clowns.
Do people like this REALLY EXIST?! I've been around the world and played 40k in multiple countries and I have NEVER seen this level of Cro-Magnon buffoonery.
I.. don't know if this makes me want to cry, or rage, or rage cry, ARGH! *pops blood vessel*
Ulf wrote: but the GW staff and the LGS owner didn't want to kick them out. I suppose the thinking was that once the game started for real, they'd settle down.
There's the problem.
If someone is being disruptive and "getting in the face", "this or that expetive" or "jabbing their fingers" in ANY customers chests, the store owner and the event runners should be racing to see who can be the first one to immediately eject these folks.
Not to say they deserved to have their terrain broken, but if you're going to run a large giant public event, then you've got to take responsibility for running a giant public event.
Relatedly, I can't help but notice that so many of these FLGS or TFG stories are about people who any store owner or event organizer should have quickly removed before the "horror story" in question occurred. I don't know if it's because many gamers/owners/organizers fit the socialy-awkward stereotype or are afraid to drive off customers/participants or maybe because we've simply got a higher tolerance for those who don't fit social norms. Whatever the reason, we as a community we sometimes seem to do a pretty poor job of self-policing.
These horror stories are all kind of funny. I ran a GW store for awhile and the worst I got was the dude I had to pull outside and talk to about deodorant.
Now, when I ran a Radioshack (small electronics chain store for my more international friends), I got to see some real horror stories. I've had two guns pointed at my head while working. I've had people take swings at me. I've had to have little old ladies arrested for stealing from me. I actually inadvertently had an undocumented immigrant deported when she was caught stealing a $5 item. I've had multiple kids drop trouser and poo on the floor. I had a guy ask to use my bathroom and then die in the stall. Actually, I've had to deal with two deaths in my store.
I no longer work in retail. I'm now very happy in my snug little cubicle being one of the more important cogs in an unstoppable real world Administratum.
Kriswall wrote: These horror stories are all kind of funny. I ran a GW store for awhile and the worst I got was the dude I had to pull outside and talk to about deodorant.
I remember when at the height of summer I sprayed a bit of deodorant under my arms in a GW. Got told not to do it as "People might be allergic".
Now, when I ran a Radioshack (small electronics chain store for my more international friends), I got to see some real horror stories. I've had two guns pointed at my head while working. I've had people take swings at me. I've had to have little old ladies arrested for stealing from me. I actually inadvertently had an undocumented immigrant deported when she was caught stealing a $5 item. I've had multiple kids drop trouser and poo on the floor. I had a guy ask to use my bathroom and then die in the stall. Actually, I've had to deal with two deaths in my store.
The worst experience I had was going to a store for a magic event that had about 80 people attending and one toilet, which somebody destroyed right before the event began. The guy clogged it to the point it couldn't be unclogged and for an extra measure of nastiness he pooped all over the seat and smeared it on the handle.
It proceeded to stink up the entire basement and game area. Apparently a couple of people thought it'd somehow sort itself out if they just kept trying to flush the thing which caused a lot of extra water to keep dumping onto the floor and created a steady trickle from under the door into the game area. They called a plumber who made an emergency call but it took a couple hours and we had to play the first half of the event smelling raw sewage which made for a delightful time.
I'll never understand what the deal is with people taking great enjoyment in ruining public washrooms, it's just disgusting.
stanman wrote: The worst experience I had was going to a store for a magic event that had about 80 people attending and one toilet, which somebody destroyed right before the event began. The guy clogged it to the point it couldn't be unclogged and for an extra measure of nastiness he pooped all over the seat and smeared it on the handle.
It proceeded to stink up the entire basement and game area. Apparently a couple of people thought it'd somehow sort itself out if they just kept trying to flush the thing which caused a lot of extra water to keep dumping onto the floor and created a steady trickle from under the door into the game area. They called a plumber who made an emergency call but it took a couple hours and we had to play the first half of the event smelling raw sewage which made for a delightful time.
I'll never understand what the deal is with people taking great enjoyment in ruining publish washrooms, it's just disgusting.
Ulf wrote: but the GW staff and the LGS owner didn't want to kick them out. I suppose the thinking was that once the game started for real, they'd settle down.
There's the problem.
If someone is being disruptive and "getting in the face", "this or that expetive" or "jabbing their fingers" in ANY customers chests, the store owner and the event runners should be racing to see who can be the first one to immediately eject these folks.
Not to say they deserved to have their terrain broken, but if you're going to run a large giant public event, then you've got to take responsibility for running a giant public event.
Relatedly, I can't help but notice that so many of these FLGS or TFG stories are about people who any store owner or event organizer should have quickly removed before the "horror story" e question occurred. I don't know if it's because many gamers/owners/organizers fit the socialy-awkward stereotype or are afraid to drive off customers/participants or maybe because we've simply got a higher tolerance for those who don't fit social norms. Whatever the reason, we as a community we sometimes seem to do a pretty poor job of self-policing.
This has been my experience, too. I had found a page a while ago that discussed this exact phenomenon. Basically, the premise was that as nerds, we were picked on for being weird, so we refuse to "pick on" other nerds for being "weird." The problem is that this thought process allows all sorts of problems to occur that wouldn't be tolerated in other social circles... The geek fallacies include things like "no one can be criticized no matter how badly they behave," "everyone has to be friends with everyone (no one can be uninvited to any event)" and a couple others. I can't for the life of me remember the site. It was very well done. Edit: Found it! The Five Geek Social Fallacies: http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html
On a similar note, I don't go to local game stores any more for this exact reason. There's just too many people who trot right past weird to disturbing, and actually straight to dangerous. Including...
- the guy who was on probation for stabbing his father and lost his gak on another player in a D&D game for using the word "stab." The poor player wanted his rogue to stab an enemy in game... provoking a screaming tirade from Stabby McStabStab. This guy also grabbed an iPhone out of the hand of an opponent for making noises, and chucked it across the room, hitting a Guard tank on another table and breaking it (the tank belonged to the store manager). There's still a lot of people who refuse to game with him at all and he disrupts every game he's in... but never seems to have any real consequences. Complaints, requests to not game with him, and lost customers don't matter (see above "geek social fallacies").
-In another store, another disturbed individual harassed a female player about every move she made in any game, criticized her choice of husband, and hovered uncomfortably close at every opportunity... standing over her shoulder to watch her at the paint station. He drove her out of the store with this behavior, described by her as, "Dude is setting off my rape alarms." Complaints to the store manager had no effect because, as they were informed, she and her husband combined didn't spend as much as Creepster did.
-Another creeper did all that, plus I don't think he'd ever used a toothbrush.... you could see the crap crusting his teeth and gums. That one would flirt with the moms that came in until they left ASAP. You could see their discomfort and disgust at this tiny little guy with nasty teeth being in their faces. He would also talk right over any females that would try to interact with the store clerk or talk about games. He was scared to death of males, though, so the store clerk, and many of the male regulars, didn't get why the females were uncomfortable. He drove another regular female gamer out of the store with his behavior.
Unfortunately, in this region, these highly disruptive and even dangerous individuals drop a LOT of money in the store and so are tolerated. At least that is the excuse I've heard as to why they're allowed to stay, but in reality I think it is more Geek Social Fallacy #1: Ostracizers are evil. People that are uncomfortable just aren't tolerant enough. Obviously Stabby McStabStab and Creepy Raperstone and his slimy-toothed clone are just harmless weirdos. I have limits though, and won't patronize stores that allow harassment and intimidation of customers. So now I buy my gak off the internet instead.
Now, when I ran a Radioshack (small electronics chain store for my more international friends), I got to see some real horror stories. I've had two guns pointed at my head while working. I've had people take swings at me. I've had to have little old ladies arrested for stealing from me. I actually inadvertently had an undocumented immigrant deported when she was caught stealing a $5 item. I've had multiple kids drop trouser and poo on the floor. I had a guy ask to use my bathroom and then die in the stall. Actually, I've had to deal with two deaths in my store.
stanman wrote: The worst experience I had was going to a store for a magic event that had about 80 people attending and one toilet, which somebody destroyed right before the event began. The guy clogged it to the point it couldn't be unclogged and for an extra measure of nastiness he pooped all over the seat and smeared it on the handle.
It proceeded to stink up the entire basement and game area. Apparently a couple of people thought it'd somehow sort itself out if they just kept trying to flush the thing which caused a lot of extra water to keep dumping onto the floor and created a steady trickle from under the door into the game area. They called a plumber who made an emergency call but it took a couple hours and we had to play the first half of the event smelling raw sewage which made for a delightful time.
I'll never understand what the deal is with people taking great enjoyment in ruining public washrooms, it's just disgusting.
I don't know why, but I burst out laughing when I read this. I know it wasn't funny at the time, though. As for ruining public restrooms, I've heard all kinds of ways people destroy them, including throwing a piece of lithium into the toilet. Kaboom!
That.... I thank the Gary Gygax that I have never encountered anything like that toilet incident and that my club members are clean and hygienic and respectable.
master of ordinance wrote: That.... I thank the Gary Gygax that I have never encountered anything like that toilet incident and that my club members are clean and hygienic and respectable.
That particular story reminds me of the movie Dogma and an incident that happened at a local restaurant attached to another restaurant next door in the town I grew up in. The restaurant next door did something to screw up their toilets which caused the sewage to come spewing out of the toilets in the other restaurant. The foul smelling mess quickly flowed out of the bathroom onto the tile floor of the eating area. The Restaurant was closed for 3 months for cleaning and still smelled HORRIBLE when it reopened. They went under because they were unable to get rid of the smell. The next door restaurant however, was crowing with joy over how they put the restaurant out of business with their superiority. The locals were none too pleased. They did their best to help the other restaurant owner get back on his feet, and the community put the other guy out of business as well by just not going there. The police screwed up the investigation so bad any evidence of wrong doing by the toilet tamperers was not usable in court.
I work in a state prison for 12 years so I have just about seen it all. If you want to hear funny stories become friends with a police officer or a corrections guard
That story about the vampire LARPers made me remember...
A good few years ago, I was at a gaming convention that's now defunct, working for a company that is also defunct... (The staff were absorbed into other companies, and organisers doubtless moved on similarly, is why I'll stay on the vaguer side of things) I used to travel wherever I was asked to, so I often ended up in places I was geographically and mentally clueless to.
So the convention moves into the darker hours, there's a party for the company staff and ticketed entry to any customers or con attendees who ended up with one. This is relevant because: I was in a casual costume that had blood coloured contact lenses. Back when this was very unusual to find outside of stage and effects work.
This was my mistake. To say the first Vampire LARP guy trying to recruit me was "predatory" would be an understatement. Then drinking started and it all went to gak. Across the evening I was repeatedly pressed to join this "midnight Vampire LARP", which I'm absolutely sure was 3/4 normal gamers who would have been very upset to know how stressed I was getting.
I was 19 and sober. I got cornered by two guys when I went outside.
"I don't know the rules..."
"You won't need to."
"I don't know anybody..."
"You won't need to!"
"I don't know my way back from [the venue]."
"I'll look after that." says a man roughly two feet taller than me, and leaning on my shoulder in what was not a reassuring way.
I just get this weird feeling that it's not going to be fun at the very least, and keep declining.
Someone later got all too drunk and tried to drag me out of the building's back exit by my arms, despite my protests. I was all of 98lb and couldn't do much about this. An older guy from my hotel sees I'm not having fun and intervened. At which point, I ran and hid in a toilet cubicle.
So I can entirely understand when people say that particular LARP attracted some odd types.
Buttery Commissar wrote: That story about the vampire LARPers made me remember...
A good few years ago, I was at a gaming convention that's now defunct, working for a company that is also defunct... (The staff were absorbed into other companies, and organisers doubtless moved on similarly, is why I'll stay on the vaguer side of things) I used to travel wherever I was asked to, so I often ended up in places I was geographically and mentally clueless to.
So the convention moves into the darker hours, there's a party for the company staff and ticketed entry to any customers or con attendees who ended up with one. This is relevant because: I was in a casual costume that had blood coloured contact lenses. Back when this was very unusual to find outside of stage and effects work.
This was my mistake. To say the first Vampire LARP guy trying to recruit me was "predatory" would be an understatement. Then drinking started and it all went to gak. Across the evening I was repeatedly pressed to join this "midnight Vampire LARP", which I'm absolutely sure was 3/4 normal gamers who would have been very upset to know how stressed I was getting.
I was 19 and sober. I got cornered by two guys when I went outside.
"I don't know the rules..."
"You won't need to."
"I don't know anybody..."
"You won't need to!"
"I don't know my way back from [the venue]."
"I'll look after that." says a man roughly two feet taller than me, and leaning on my shoulder in what was not a reassuring way.
I just get this weird feeling that it's not going to be fun at the very least, and keep declining.
Someone later got all too drunk and tried to drag me out of the building's back exit by my arms, despite my protests. I was all of 98lb and couldn't do much about this. An older guy from my hotel sees I'm not having fun and intervened. At which point, I ran and hid in a toilet cubicle.
So I can entirely understand when people say that particular LARP attracted some odd types.
Well that is creepy as hell. Though 19 and only 98 pounds?
Buttery Commissar wrote: That story about the vampire LARPers made me remember...
A good few years ago, I was at a gaming convention that's now defunct, working for a company that is also defunct... (The staff were absorbed into other companies, and organisers doubtless moved on similarly, is why I'll stay on the vaguer side of things) I used to travel wherever I was asked to, so I often ended up in places I was geographically and mentally clueless to.
So the convention moves into the darker hours, there's a party for the company staff and ticketed entry to any customers or con attendees who ended up with one. This is relevant because: I was in a casual costume that had blood coloured contact lenses. Back when this was very unusual to find outside of stage and effects work.
This was my mistake. To say the first Vampire LARP guy trying to recruit me was "predatory" would be an understatement. Then drinking started and it all went to gak. Across the evening I was repeatedly pressed to join this "midnight Vampire LARP", which I'm absolutely sure was 3/4 normal gamers who would have been very upset to know how stressed I was getting.
I was 19 and sober. I got cornered by two guys when I went outside.
"I don't know the rules..."
"You won't need to."
"I don't know anybody..."
"You won't need to!"
"I don't know my way back from [the venue]."
"I'll look after that." says a man roughly two feet taller than me, and leaning on my shoulder in what was not a reassuring way.
I just get this weird feeling that it's not going to be fun at the very least, and keep declining.
Someone later got all too drunk and tried to drag me out of the building's back exit by my arms, despite my protests. I was all of 98lb and couldn't do much about this. An older guy from my hotel sees I'm not having fun and intervened. At which point, I ran and hid in a toilet cubicle.
So I can entirely understand when people say that particular LARP attracted some odd types.
Well that is creepy as hell. Though 19 and only 98 pounds?
Buttery Commissar wrote: That story about the vampire LARPers made me remember...
A good few years ago, I was at a gaming convention that's now defunct, working for a company that is also defunct... (The staff were absorbed into other companies, and organisers doubtless moved on similarly, is why I'll stay on the vaguer side of things) I used to travel wherever I was asked to, so I often ended up in places I was geographically and mentally clueless to.
So the convention moves into the darker hours, there's a party for the company staff and ticketed entry to any customers or con attendees who ended up with one. This is relevant because: I was in a casual costume that had blood coloured contact lenses. Back when this was very unusual to find outside of stage and effects work.
This was my mistake. To say the first Vampire LARP guy trying to recruit me was "predatory" would be an understatement. Then drinking started and it all went to gak. Across the evening I was repeatedly pressed to join this "midnight Vampire LARP", which I'm absolutely sure was 3/4 normal gamers who would have been very upset to know how stressed I was getting.
I was 19 and sober. I got cornered by two guys when I went outside.
"I don't know the rules..."
"You won't need to."
"I don't know anybody..."
"You won't need to!"
"I don't know my way back from [the venue]."
"I'll look after that." says a man roughly two feet taller than me, and leaning on my shoulder in what was not a reassuring way.
I just get this weird feeling that it's not going to be fun at the very least, and keep declining.
Someone later got all too drunk and tried to drag me out of the building's back exit by my arms, despite my protests. I was all of 98lb and couldn't do much about this. An older guy from my hotel sees I'm not having fun and intervened. At which point, I ran and hid in a toilet cubicle.
So I can entirely understand when people say that particular LARP attracted some odd types.
Well that is creepy as hell. Though 19 and only 98 pounds?
Whichever makes it worse. A good friend of mine said, "There'd be an awful lot of the 'Dominate' hand signal." which makes me feel better about giving the whole thing a pass.
Yeah, I was tiny. 5'7" and permanently cold. There was an undiagnosed medical reason. I'm fine.
Relevant to weight: That party was also the night a guy literally picked me up off the floor by one arm, and tried to get me to go somewhere private with him. You've never seen a group of middle aged tabletop players move so quickly. He was banned from the events for the next day until he apologised (sober) the next morning and I accepted.
When usually reserved, calm people get away from home and responsibility with alcohol, some aren't good at reigning in.
Corralling comic con artists is easily the worst job I've ever had, as they're usually in the bar, away from the OH who's back home. I've taken Starbucks cups of whisky off artists about to give talks, told convention goers they can't pay in bottles of bourbon, not because it's against policy, but because it renders the artist unable to function for day 3...
I think they just wanted a confused submissive thrall/ghoul(?) for the night, but looking back I suspect I may not have made it to the game. I'm certain the moment I turned up at that game and made it clear I was uncomfortable/unwilling as feth, any sober participants would have intervened.
The night was saved by actual LARPers allowing me and a couple of friends to sit at their campfire, which is a resounding good memory.
Buttery Commissar wrote: Whichever makes it worse. A good friend of mine said, "There'd be an awful lot of the 'Dominate' hand signal." which makes me feel better about giving the whole thing a pass.
Yeah, I was tiny. 5'7" and permanently cold. There was an undiagnosed medical reason. I'm fine.
Relevant to weight: That party was also the night a guy literally picked me up off the floor by one arm, and tried to get me to go somewhere private with him. You've never seen a group of middle aged tabletop players move so quickly. He was banned from the events for the next day until he apologised (sober) the next morning and I accepted.
When usually reserved, calm people get away from home and responsibility with alcohol, some aren't good at reigning in.
Corralling comic con artists is easily the worst job I've ever had, as they're usually in the bar, away from the OH who's back home. I've taken Starbucks cups of whisky off artists about to give talks, told convention goers they can't pay in bottles of bourbon, not because it's against policy, but because it renders the artist unable to function for day 3...
I think they just wanted a confused submissive thrall/ghoul(?) for the night, but looking back I suspect I may not have made it to the game. I'm certain the moment I turned up at that game and made it clear I was uncomfortable/unwilling as feth, any sober participants would have intervened.
The night was saved by actual LARPers allowing me and a couple of friends to sit at their campfire, which is a resounding good memory.
Sounds a lot like my buddy who is 5'4 and weighs 105 pounds .
And holy gak, my con story gets a whole lot darker if you don't assume I'm a guy. Or maybe it's just as bad if you do. Those guys had no idea what orientation I was/am, other than disinterested.
That whole year was an eye opener. I had a lot of things explained to me about being overly trusting of people in the community. Got myself a genuine stalker at one point from not knowing how to get out of the situation. Guy mailed me his worn clothing.
And holy gak, my con story gets a whole lot darker if you don't assume I'm a guy. Or maybe it's just as bad if you do. Those guys had no idea what orientation I was/am, other than disinterested.
That whole year was an eye opener. I had a lot of things explained to me about being overly trusting of people in the community. Got myself a genuine stalker at one point from not knowing how to get out of the situation. Guy mailed me his worn clothing.
We try not to take him outside as large predatory birds might try and take him .
But seriously I think BC wins this horrible contest with that last story.
The short of it was that I was naive enough to believe someone could be okay with just being my friend / bro after amorous advances were rejected, and the (far older) older person in question didn't have the self control to leave well alone.
Started turning up uninvited to gaming events and RPG sessions, to my dorm, writing me massive emails, 30-40 texts a day... Beyond that point I don't really want to talk/think about it, but yes it culminated in him mailing me his unwashed pyjamas after a breakdown.
I washed, ironed and returned them, because if there's anything weirder than mailing someone your dirty laundry, it's mailing someone else's back.
Some people are just very very lost. I can't bear grudges.
Buttery Commissar wrote: The short of it was that I was naive enough to believe someone could be okay with just being my friend / bro after amorous advances were rejected, and the (far older) older person in question didn't have the self control to leave well alone.
Started turning up uninvited to gaming events and RPG sessions, to my dorm, writing me massive emails, 30-40 texts a day... Beyond that point I don't really want to talk/think about it, but yes it culminated in him mailing me his unwashed pyjamas after a breakdown.
I washed, ironed and returned them, because if there's anything weirder than mailing someone your dirty laundry, it's mailing someone else's back.
Some people are just very very lost. I can't bear grudges.
To funny you mailed them back after you washed and ironed them....
Honestly it was for two reasons:
If it got lost, damaged or refused, the PO would open it and return it to me, as you cannot send a parcel without a return address. I didn't want dirty clothes once, I sure as hell didn't want them again. There were some very personal items in there, that even if he was a fruit cake, didn't deserve losing to the mail system.
Plus, it would have confused him a great deal, which without resorting to property damage, cheered me up.
Back in the 90s there was a group of guys I played 40k with, this was back in 2nd ed. There was this one guy named Stu. Stu was your poster child for smelly, sloppy, annoying, disgusting gamers, and he lived with his girlfriend and they had 4 or 5 kids together. Again, not married. The girlfriend was actually kind of cute if she was cleaned up. Anyway, It was game night at the comic book store, and I was in the card gaming room sitting at a table playing Battletech with a friend. Stu's girlfriend came in and sat down beside me. We greated each other, she asked what we were playing, I told her, she leaned in, put her hand under the table on on my thigh, squeezed, and asked when was I going to teach her how to play. I bolted straight up, announced to my friend I had forgot I had to do something, and headed for the door. My friend, who is totally confused, yells what about my mechs, and I yelled back keep them for me! That was completely shocking and awkward. The thought of going were Stu had been grossed me out. ( still shudders thinking about it)
Raven911 wrote: Back in the 90s there was a group of guys I played 40k with, this was back in 2nd ed. There was this one guy named Stu. Stu was your poster child for smelly, sloppy, annoying, disgusting gamers, and he lived with his girlfriend and they had 4 or 5 kids together. Again, not married. The girlfriend was actually kind of cute if she was cleaned up. Anyway, It was game night at the comic book store, and I was in the card gaming room sitting at a table playing Battletech with a friend. Stu's girlfriend came in and sat down beside me. We greated each other, she asked what we were playing, I told her, she leaned in, put her hand under the table on on my thigh, squeezed, and asked when was I going to teach her how to play. I bolted straight up, announced to my friend I had forgot I had to do something, and headed for the door. My friend, who is totally confused, yells what about my mechs, and I yelled back keep them for me! That was completely shocking and awkward. The thought of going were Stu had been grossed me out. ( still shudders thinking about it)
But, you could have saved her from a life with Stu. You could have been a great father to Stu's kids. You and the former Mrs. Stu could be gaming right now on New Year's Eve in your beautiful home with Stu's beautiful children. You could have been living the dream, but you threw it all away for some misguided morality trip.
I'll bet Mrs. Stu thinks about you to this very day.
the_Armyman wrote: but you threw it all away for some misguided morality trip.
I don't think it was morality.
More sanitary.
Bah, nothing some Lysol and Purell won't fix. Then again I'm kinda the NDG (Non-Discriminating Guy) as described by Stephen Lynch TM. And if he can't give her what he needs I don't have a problem doing it. So long as they no longer an item type thing or with his consent (just don't do 3-somes. Don't like my dice bag to rub against someone elses).
the_Armyman wrote: but you threw it all away for some misguided morality trip.
I don't think it was morality.
More sanitary.
Bah, nothing some Lysol and Purell won't fix. Then again I'm kinda the NDG (Non-Discriminating Guy) as described by Stephen Lynch TM. And if he can't give her what he needs I don't have a problem doing it. So long as they no longer an item type thing or with his consent (just don't do 3-somes. Don't like my dice bag to rub against someone elses).
Now THAT is an image we all could have lived without. Now I might not be able to touch an actual dice bag without thinking of this (lol JK!). Although you're right, that would not be pleasant at all.
As for BC's story, when he mentioned his weight, all I could think of was "Someone get this guy a sandwich!"
I lived above a pizza place at the time, and I could down a 14" of an evening. The owner thought I was ordering for my room mates (because what 98lb person sits at home and eats their weight in pizza?), so would occasionally make a "mistake" and double the order to help out us poor students. Except it was just me, in my room, eating my way through Fable II.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Uh, the pedant in me needs to point out that threesomes don't require dice bags anywhere near each other. You might bump heads, though.
Or depending on the arrangement you or someone else might get accidentally bit. On another note threesomes are seriously overrated and completely un-sexy. They don't go anything like they do in the "movies" and someone is usually get less attention or sometimes someone is getting too much attention. Really creepy if it 2 guys and a girl and the second guy is too interested in the other guy.
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Buttery Commissar wrote: I lived above a pizza place at the time, and I could down a 14" of an evening. The owner thought I was ordering for my room mates (because what 98lb person sits at home and eats their weight in pizza?), so would occasionally make a "mistake" and double the order to help out us poor students. Except it was just me, in my room, eating my way through Fable II.
Except for the fable II part that sounds a lot like heaven lol.
It was good, but there are other games from that period I liked better. To get back on thread topic...
The gaming store in the town I grew up in was horrible. No played in the tournaments because they were rigged. The "organizer" would participate and bring illegal decks and rule in his own favor, usually against the rules of the game (what ever it happened to be). He always took first and then would brag about how awesome he was. The actual owner was too much of a push over to do anything about it. When we started our own clean tournament without the organizer, he would come to harrass the other players. Meanwhile the store owner supported the community less and less. Started to treat the gamers as garbage even though we were bringing in all his profit. No clue if his game store is still in buisness. He was more interested in his music store anyway. It isn't so much a horror story as much as just an unpleasant one, but it is more in spirit of the thread; and a person could argue a bad and poorly run gaming store in a town with nothing else in it is it's own horror.
Raven911 wrote: Back in the 90s there was a group of guys I played 40k with, this was back in 2nd ed. There was this one guy named Stu. Stu was your poster child for smelly, sloppy, annoying, disgusting gamers, and he lived with his girlfriend and they had 4 or 5 kids together. Again, not married. The girlfriend was actually kind of cute if she was cleaned up. Anyway, It was game night at the comic book store, and I was in the card gaming room sitting at a table playing Battletech with a friend. Stu's girlfriend came in and sat down beside me. We greated each other, she asked what we were playing, I told her, she leaned in, put her hand under the table on on my thigh, squeezed, and asked when was I going to teach her how to play. I bolted straight up, announced to my friend I had forgot I had to do something, and headed for the door. My friend, who is totally confused, yells what about my mechs, and I yelled back keep them for me! That was completely shocking and awkward. The thought of going were Stu had been grossed me out. ( still shudders thinking about it)
But, you could have saved her from a life with Stu. You could have been a great father to Stu's kids. You and the former Mrs. Stu could be gaming right now on New Year's Eve in your beautiful home with Stu's beautiful children. You could have been living the dream, but you threw it all away for some misguided morality trip.
I'll bet Mrs. Stu thinks about you to this very day.
I would deffinatley been an upgrade. But I think I'll keep my smoking hot latina wife and beautiful daughter.
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BobtheInquisitor wrote: Uh, the pedant in me needs to point out that threesomes don't require dice bags anywhere near each other. You might bump heads, though.
If there are more than one "dice bag" in a threesome you are doing it wrong.
It was good, but there are other games from that period I liked better. To get back on thread topic...
The gaming store in the town I grew up in was horrible. No played in the tournaments because they were rigged. The "organizer" would participate and bring illegal decks and rule in his own favor, usually against the rules of the game (what ever it happened to be). He always took first and then would brag about how awesome he was. The actual owner was too much of a push over to do anything about it. When we started our own clean tournament without the organizer, he would come to harrass the other players. Meanwhile the store owner supported the community less and less. Started to treat the gamers as garbage even though we were bringing in all his profit. No clue if his game store is still in buisness. He was more interested in his music store anyway. It isn't so much a horror story as much as just an unpleasant one, but it is more in spirit of the thread; and a person could argue a bad and poorly run gaming store in a town with nothing else in it is it's own horror.
This reminds me of a store run by a high school friend's father long, long ago. I had heard that the son would rig tournaments by changing the rules and not tell anyone, and then win them; I forget the specific details as it was long ago, I was banned from the store at the time, and know nothing about Magic but something about having to acquire X life points instead of lose them, so he had a deck that did it and didn't tell anyone that those were the rules until he won the event. I don't know for sure but that's what I had heard just before they closed down. He also did something similar in WHFB, had a league and then proceeded to play (this was 5th edition) a Bretonnian army that consisted of a souped-up lord on a dragon and a min unit of archers that hid the entire game, and just steamrolled everybody to make them drop out because it was totally unfun to play against, and then used his prize money to buy more Magic cards (which I never really got since his dad owned the store, and he worked in the store so he basically could have gotten anything he wanted).
I was banned from there because at the time I had been playing Hackmaster, back when Kenzerco had an association for stores (to keep up the theme of the game from the comics), and they were bringing people into the group, giving them magic items then killing them, taking the items and basically calling them sissies/wimps who couldn't handle the game and running them out of the store, basically taking the tongue-in-cheek attitude Hackmaster had to the extreme, also the owner's son had the most powerful character and the other PCs were in-game basically his servants/hirelings who did whatever he said, because he would kill them if they didn't. I innocently posted a question on the forums asking for character advice (my plan was to suck up to him) and mentioned something about the group, then another guy who had it happen to him chimed in and said what had happened, and it culminated in the store being kicked out of the retail association and then a bunch of people (including at least one who had the stuff happen to him) come on the forum to make death threats towards me for getting the shop kicked out. I never went back but once recall asking a 40k group I was interested in joining to casually mention my name, because they were planning to play at the store and I told them that I had history with the store, and wasn't comfortable going there but maybe if I had a group, it would be better. The response I got later that day was that not only was I not welcome in the store, group or not, but I should avoid even being in the vicinity of the store while they were playing. I never did quite figure out what that meant but I gathered it would have been something like "There he is, get him!" if they saw me.
I used to play in a store where the owner ran organised play for tournaments, and I would travel to several others, so had a concept how how wrong this one was.
The tournaments were played fairly. But. The owner would trade the prizes off his players, "buy" them for store credit against second hand items and games. Common and ucommon booster pulls.
Except the trades were rarely fair. The part the galled me was that the players thought they were up on the deal, happily telling me of the tons of credit they'd earned, whilst the owner sold their prizes for real money on eBay. We're talking months of £25/week top prizes. By trading the items back, the owner was circumventing the part where he was not allowed to simply take the prizes from the boxes and sell them without running games.
So he would get the entry and booster money from the tournaments, the prizes, and no culpability.
Raven911 wrote: If there are more than one "dice bag" in a threesome you are doing it wrong.
Many would disagree; takes all types to make a world. Not everyone is linear.
(And no, I still wouldn't have enjoyed my evening with the vampire LARPers)
This reminds me of a store run by a high school friend's father long, long ago. I had heard that the son would rig tournaments by changing the rules and not tell anyone, and then win them; I forget the specific details as it was long ago, I was banned from the store at the time, and know nothing about Magic but something about having to acquire X life points instead of lose them, so he had a deck that did it and didn't tell anyone that those were the rules until he won the event. I don't know for sure but that's what I had heard just before they closed down. He also did something similar in WHFB, had a league and then proceeded to play (this was 5th edition) a Bretonnian army that consisted of a souped-up lord on a dragon and a min unit of archers that hid the entire game, and just steamrolled everybody to make them drop out because it was totally unfun to play against, and then used his prize money to buy more Magic cards (which I never really got since his dad owned the store, and he worked in the store so he basically could have gotten anything he wanted).
I was banned from there because at the time I had been playing Hackmaster, back when Kenzerco had an association for stores (to keep up the theme of the game from the comics), and they were bringing people into the group, giving them magic items then killing them, taking the items and basically calling them sissies/wimps who couldn't handle the game and running them out of the store, basically taking the tongue-in-cheek attitude Hackmaster had to the extreme, also the owner's son had the most powerful character and the other PCs were in-game basically his servants/hirelings who did whatever he said, because he would kill them if they didn't. I innocently posted a question on the forums asking for character advice (my plan was to suck up to him) and mentioned something about the group, then another guy who had it happen to him chimed in and said what had happened, and it culminated in the store being kicked out of the retail association and then a bunch of people (including at least one who had the stuff happen to him) come on the forum to make death threats towards me for getting the shop kicked out. I never went back but once recall asking a 40k group I was interested in joining to casually mention my name, because they were planning to play at the store and I told them that I had history with the store, and wasn't comfortable going there but maybe if I had a group, it would be better. The response I got later that day was that not only was I not welcome in the store, group or not, but I should avoid even being in the vicinity of the store while they were playing. I never did quite figure out what that meant but I gathered it would have been something like "There he is, get him!" if they saw me.
I feel this kind of thing happens more often than one would expect. I have noticed it is hard to find responsible, fair, and professional gaming store owners. I know the owner of the store in my local area (before he closed the doors due to personal reasons) had several people managing it for him behind the scenes before he took over (he was a silent partner/owner). The managers before he took over were unprofessional and outright thieves (would steal cards from the customers). For several years after the owner got rid of them he worked a full time job then come run the store after work.
I know of one Game store "Manager" in the area that manage to kill off at least 2 different store. Back when GW was selling the Black boxes this gentleman would pretty much keep the models if he liked them. He also manage to get at least one store kicked out of the MTG tournament program because he was flogging the prizes on Ebay. I remember he went to the GAMA trade show and Wyrd had loaded him down with box sets for demos and giveaways and they never showed up in the store. He and his crew would get the store filled with the latest game he was playing and once they were finished the game was never spoken of again but they had tons of product left. I am not sure how this fellow kept getting hired but he managed to convince the new store owners he was god's gift to gaming. The last I heard he bought out the last store after he ran it into the ground and opened his own store. It is not that far away but I would not even think of going there.
Karnophage wrote: I know of one Game store "Manager" in the area that manage to kill off at least 2 different store. Back when GW was selling the Black boxes this gentleman would pretty much keep the models if he liked them. He also manage to get at least one store kicked out of the MTG tournament program because he was flogging the prizes on Ebay. I remember he went to the GAMA trade show and Wyrd had loaded him down with box sets for demos and giveaways and they never showed up in the store. He and his crew would get the store filled with the latest game he was playing and once they were finished the game was never spoken of again but they had tons of product left. I am not sure how this fellow kept getting hired but he managed to convince the new store owners he was god's gift to gaming. The last I heard he bought out the last store after he ran it into the ground and opened his own store. It is not that far away but I would not even think of going there.
Maybe he ran them into the ground intentionally to hopefully get the owner to sell to get his own store without a lot of the usual costs associated with starting a business. Certainly less paperwork. And if you have the old inventory, then you have to do less to get up and running. I would have bought out the old FLGS owner here when he was closing his doors if I could have afforded it. He was trying to sell it to a new owner instead of another store out of town to keep the shop open, but no one had the cash despite his low price.
While employee theft is always bad, I think that it's almost surprising it doesn't happen more. I mean, think about what happens in most of these cases:
1) Take a person, usually young, and give them the responsibility to open/close a store, handle cash, and even hire/fire employees.
2) Pay them as little as possible.
3) be shocked when they supplement their income!
At one point in 2003, I had keys, scheduling responsibility, and hiring/firing authority over a small swimming pool supply store. I was paid $9/hour. I know at least two other managers were involved in fairly major theft of the store or the main location. One was caught and immediately fired, the other highly suspected and eventually "let go."
Nothing to bad, but frusterating and kinda shady business practice IMO So, we all wanted to get n more games for Pathfinder society. So we go to a newly open store and start playing. about 3 weeks in, we all get an email from the Bay Area coordinator telling us to go to another store, that this one is shady, does illegal stuff and he will never support Pathfinder Society there. So we stop. What do I find out? the Coordinator is best friends with the owner of another store down the street that has been there longer and secretly ranting and raving about it.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Nothing to bad, but frusterating and kinda shady business practice IMO So, we all wanted to get n more games for Pathfinder society. So we go to a newly open store and start playing. about 3 weeks in, we all get an email from the Bay Area coordinator telling us to go to another store, that this one is shady, does illegal stuff and he will never support Pathfinder Society there. So we stop. What do I find out? the Coordinator is best friends with the owner of another store down the street that has been there longer and secretly ranting and raving about it.
It might not be the worst, but it is one of those situations that leaves a REALLY bad taste in your mouth. This kind of thing seems to be something that happens a lot in the gaming community as well.
Back in the early 2000's El Paso, TX had a short lived shop that opened out of spite of another (much better) shop. The owner and his wife were long time military, and would aggressively troll the other store to try and get people to go over. The store started off super slow (mostly because people didn't like the owners), and eventually you could see the writing on the wall when products weren't restocked and new releases weren't purchased.
One afternoon, towards the tail end of the shops lifespan, some friends and I went over (we were 16 and 17) to see if we could find any gems, (they occasionally would stock some rare blood bowl teams and necromunda gangs). We tried opening the door and it was locked, despite the "We're Open" sign being on, and the stores lights being on. So we knocked on the door and waited a few minutes. The owners wife eventually walks in and open's the door wearing what appears to be just a t-shirt and nothing else. Shortly thereafter, two ugly dudes come out from the back looking disheveled buckling up their pants, and walking out. Feeling uncomfortable but not wanting to be rude since she let us in, we quickly perused the store to be polite and tried to slowly walk out. Before we get to the door, the woman tells us "boys if you ever want to party, I'm looking to make some extra money, I can work out a discount for all of you". We got out of there as fast as we could and never went back. Not that I would be down for that anyway, but this woman was about as nasty as it gets.
Fast forward a year later (the store had since closed), my friends take me to a strip club for my 18th birthday, and there's this same nasty chick working the floor (Imagine the nasty South Park "Anybody want a daaaance" stripper). She comes to talk to us as she recognized us and we all stone faced repeatedly act like we've never met her. Before the night ends, we see her getting escorted out of the strip club by a cop for soliciting prostitution to an undercover officer.
While some of these horror stories are good, being solicited to a gangbang with a nasty store owner when we were all underage is about as terrifying as it gets.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Nothing to bad, but frusterating and kinda shady business practice IMO So, we all wanted to get n more games for Pathfinder society. So we go to a newly open store and start playing. about 3 weeks in, we all get an email from the Bay Area coordinator telling us to go to another store, that this one is shady, does illegal stuff and he will never support Pathfinder Society there. So we stop. What do I find out? the Coordinator is best friends with the owner of another store down the street that has been there longer and secretly ranting and raving about it.
It might not be the worst, but it is one of those situations that leaves a REALLY bad taste in your mouth. This kind of thing seems to be something that happens a lot in the gaming community as well.
The owner of the store I mentioned in my first post liked to send his employees with super curbstomp decks made from the store's cards to his competitor's Friday Night Magic just to make it unenjoyable for the other players who were there. It was a small store and most of the players there were either new or just playing casually. My buddy recognized what was going on and told the owner of his competitor and got all the employees banned from the store. Of course, I didn't learn about this until after I had already decided I was pretty much already done with them. That said, I agree on the bad taste you get when you hear about that sort of tomfoolery.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: I think I'm going to barf...that prostitution story took my mind to places I didn't want to go...
Same. Yet with that story and Paulson's. I'm starting to wonder how many LFGSs have these secret hookup rooms. All my current one has is a maintenance closet. If this is the norm, I may think twice about grabbing the broom out for something.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: I think I'm going to barf...that prostitution story took my mind to places I didn't want to go...
Same. Yet with that story and Paulson's. I'm starting to wonder how many LFGSs have these secret hookup rooms. All my current one has is a maintenance closet. If this is the norm, I may think twice about grabbing the broom out for something.
I'm pretty non-discriminating, but even I don't go for prostitutes. Doesn't matter to me how good or bad they look. They are usually nothing more than slaves to some pimp, and I don't go for that crap. I don't like hotel rooms. They aren't cleaned anywhere near as well as people think. I travel with plastic sheets for the beds when I know I will need to stay in a hotel room. So, maintenance closets are pretty low on my list of things to be skeeved out by. I do like a good dirty girl who is "free spirited."
hotsauceman1 wrote: Nothing to bad, but frusterating and kinda shady business practice IMO So, we all wanted to get n more games for Pathfinder society. So we go to a newly open store and start playing. about 3 weeks in, we all get an email from the Bay Area coordinator telling us to go to another store, that this one is shady, does illegal stuff and he will never support Pathfinder Society there. So we stop. What do I find out? the Coordinator is best friends with the owner of another store down the street that has been there longer and secretly ranting and raving about it.
So, you got an e-mail from a guy who told you to do something, and you did it without giving it a second thought? You must be rich, too, from giving all those Nigerian princes your bank account info
hotsauceman1 wrote: Nothing to bad, but frusterating and kinda shady business practice IMO So, we all wanted to get n more games for Pathfinder society. So we go to a newly open store and start playing. about 3 weeks in, we all get an email from the Bay Area coordinator telling us to go to another store, that this one is shady, does illegal stuff and he will never support Pathfinder Society there. So we stop. What do I find out? the Coordinator is best friends with the owner of another store down the street that has been there longer and secretly ranting and raving about it.
So, you got an e-mail from a guy who told you to do something, and you did it without giving it a second thought? You must be rich, too, from giving all those Nigerian princes your bank account info
Not really. Its a case of an authority figure warning you to avoid a "shady" store. Of course you're going to believe him.
Might not count as a horror story, but this last Thursday at my FLGS I was setting up to play 40k, seemed like a normal gaming night that had been a relaxing day of the week for the last 3 years. As I was getting ready to deploy I see a Newer(A) player come in and start setting up a table. His friend walks in(B) as well and starts setting up terrain. (A) leaves to go to the front to see when his wife was going to get there and play 40k with them. I overhear player(B) said his name was "Blank" and I had a suspicion right there who this was. When player(A)'s wife comes in, It Happened to be my Ex-wife who cheated on me with "Blank" while I was in Iraq in '08. So a lot of anger from my end to that party. they went to the front to get some food, I started tossing my models off the table into my dufflebag, not caring what broke or not, and took everything to my car and left within a minute. I am Not going to that store again. Not to play, not to buy, nothing. Sucks too since I have played there for 3 years.
conker249 wrote: Might not count as a horror story, but this last Thursday at my FLGS I was setting up to play 40k, seemed like a normal gaming night that had been a relaxing day of the week for the last 3 years. As I was getting ready to deploy I see a Newer(A) player come in and start setting up a table. His friend walks in(B) as well and starts setting up terrain. (A) leaves to go to the front to see when his wife was going to get there and play 40k with them. I overhear player(B) said his name was "Blank" and I had a suspicion right there who this was. When player(A)'s wife comes in, It Happened to be my Ex-wife who cheated on me with "Blank" while I was in Iraq in '08. So a lot of anger from my end to that party. they went to the front to get some food, I started tossing my models off the table into my dufflebag, not caring what broke or not, and took everything to my car and left within a minute. I am Not going to that store again. Not to play, not to buy, nothing. Sucks too since I have played there for 3 years.
conker249 wrote: Might not count as a horror story, but this last Thursday at my FLGS I was setting up to play 40k, seemed like a normal gaming night that had been a relaxing day of the week for the last 3 years. As I was getting ready to deploy I see a Newer(A) player come in and start setting up a table. His friend walks in(B) as well and starts setting up terrain. (A) leaves to go to the front to see when his wife was going to get there and play 40k with them. I overhear player(B) said his name was "Blank" and I had a suspicion right there who this was. When player(A)'s wife comes in, It Happened to be my Ex-wife who cheated on me with "Blank" while I was in Iraq in '08. So a lot of anger from my end to that party. they went to the front to get some food, I started tossing my models off the table into my dufflebag, not caring what broke or not, and took everything to my car and left within a minute. I am Not going to that store again. Not to play, not to buy, nothing. Sucks too since I have played there for 3 years.
conker249 wrote: Might not count as a horror story, but this last Thursday at my FLGS I was setting up to play 40k, seemed like a normal gaming night that had been a relaxing day of the week for the last 3 years. As I was getting ready to deploy I see a Newer(A) player come in and start setting up a table. His friend walks in(B) as well and starts setting up terrain. (A) leaves to go to the front to see when his wife was going to get there and play 40k with them. I overhear player(B) said his name was "Blank" and I had a suspicion right there who this was. When player(A)'s wife comes in, It Happened to be my Ex-wife who cheated on me with "Blank" while I was in Iraq in '08. So a lot of anger from my end to that party. they went to the front to get some food, I started tossing my models off the table into my dufflebag, not caring what broke or not, and took everything to my car and left within a minute. I am Not going to that store again. Not to play, not to buy, nothing. Sucks too since I have played there for 3 years.
Man that sucks. Maybe no ex-wife is worth broken models though?
RivenSkull wrote: A full grown adult - middle aged at that - crapped his pants last night rather than getting up and walking less than 15 feet to the bathroom.
And he wasn't playing cards or tabletop, he was playing a friendly board game with a group of friends.
Either he was terrified of public restrooms, or it was a really engaging board game.
RivenSkull wrote: A full grown adult - middle aged at that - crapped his pants last night rather than getting up and walking less than 15 feet to the bathroom.
And he wasn't playing cards or tabletop, he was playing a friendly board game with a group of friends.
Either he was terrified of public restrooms, or it was a really engaging board game.
Or he has a pathological distrust for his opponents.
Holy crap at some of the stories in here. The one with the Neckbeard family of three pisses me off the most. I bet those losers love AoS since it encourages BS like that.
I don't got a horror story, just a sad one, and its only hearsay since I didn't actually see it go down: In my local GW, there was this posse of teens (I'd say no older than 16-17) that would come almost every Friday night. One guy would always bring his GF along. She was clearly not into the hobby but she was friendly and tried her best to be supportive, thought it was very clear some nights she did not want to be there (and given how some of the regulars, most in their 30s and 40s mind you, would gawk at her like she was a unicorn or something, i can't blame her). Anyway, I heard this from my two friends that one Friday nights there at the store (at an Apocalypse game no less), the girl and her boyfriend get into a loud fight and she essentially broke up with him and stormed out of the store. From what my friends said the guy managed to keep his cool until the game was over for the night (Apoc games ran the whole weekend). Once most people had left he just sat on a painting bench and started crying.
Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote: Holy crap at some of the stories in here. The one with the Neckbeard family of three pisses me off the most. I bet those losers love AoS since it encourages BS like that.
I don't got a horror story, just a sad one, and its only hearsay since I didn't actually see it go down: In my local GW, there was this posse of teens (I'd say no older than 16-17) that would come almost every Friday night. One guy would always bring his GF along. She was clearly not into the hobby but she was friendly and tried her best to be supportive, thought it was very clear some nights she did not want to be there (and given how some of the regulars, most in their 30s and 40s mind you, would gawk at her like she was a unicorn or something, i can't blame her). Anyway, I heard this from my two friends that one Friday nights there at the store (at an Apocalypse game no less), the girl and her boyfriend get into a loud fight and she essentially broke up with him and stormed out of the store. From what my friends said the guy managed to keep his cool until the game was over for the night (Apoc games ran the whole weekend). Once most people had left he just sat on a painting bench and started crying.
That's nice. Group people who like a game in with miscreants like that. Just because they like a game you don't. Go back to kicking puppies. People who post messages like yours love to do stuff like that.
RivenSkull wrote: A full grown adult - middle aged at that - crapped his pants last night rather than getting up and walking less than 15 feet to the bathroom.
And he wasn't playing cards or tabletop, he was playing a friendly board game with a group of friends.
Either he was terrified of public restrooms, or it was a really engaging board game.
Or he has a pathological distrust for his opponents.
He had been farting through out the night, and they had been pretty bad, but then it got to a point where it just was awful and not dissipating. That lasted about 15-20 minutes before the store employee started walking around trying to find the source of the smell. That group started cleaning up the game then, and we didn't figure out the guy had shat in his pants and sat in it until he got up and you could see the mess on the chair/pants/floor, and the trail to the door.
Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote: Holy crap at some of the stories in here. The one with the Neckbeard family of three pisses me off the most. I bet those losers love AoS since it encourages BS like that.
I don't got a horror story, just a sad one, and its only hearsay since I didn't actually see it go down: In my local GW, there was this posse of teens (I'd say no older than 16-17) that would come almost every Friday night. One guy would always bring his GF along. She was clearly not into the hobby but she was friendly and tried her best to be supportive, thought it was very clear some nights she did not want to be there (and given how some of the regulars, most in their 30s and 40s mind you, would gawk at her like she was a unicorn or something, i can't blame her). Anyway, I heard this from my two friends that one Friday nights there at the store (at an Apocalypse game no less), the girl and her boyfriend get into a loud fight and she essentially broke up with him and stormed out of the store. From what my friends said the guy managed to keep his cool until the game was over for the night (Apoc games ran the whole weekend). Once most people had left he just sat on a painting bench and started crying.
That's nice. Group people who like a game in with miscreants like that. Just because they like a game you don't. Go back to kicking puppies. People who post messages like yours love to do stuff like that.
RivenSkull wrote: A full grown adult - middle aged at that - crapped his pants last night rather than getting up and walking less than 15 feet to the bathroom.
And he wasn't playing cards or tabletop, he was playing a friendly board game with a group of friends.
It's all gaks and giggles until someone giggles and gaks...
The comment that was unhelpful was Ferrum_Sanguinus'. He generalized AOS supporters as being like the terrain wrecking geniuses from early on in the thread.
Shadow captain edithae was just clarifying to Ferrum why bi'ios was frustrated at his post. He deserved no reprimand.
As for on topic, not really a horror story, but the game store in the city closest to me seems to have a problem spreading disinformation. Strange rumours abound there. Just recently a fellow from my group returned from the store convinced age of sigmar flopped completely and that gw is putting out 9th edition fantasy soon. He was buying fantasy models at the time, and aos is such a failure in that city that I feel the store owner told him that just so he might come back and buy more. Not the first time I've heard gakky rumours from that store. It's not even a gw.
Does that sort of thing happen often? Would be better to be transparent about releases and empower your customers a bit to know when things are true or not... sad part is I think he fully believes it and would be hard to convince otherwise now.
I was only pointing out something that he appeared to miss. In fact I missed it myself and had to do a double take of the original comment to figure out why the other guy was offended.
It wasn't a "sarcastically pointing out the obvious" thing if that's what red is getting at.
I was only pointing out something that he appeared to miss. In fact I missed it myself and had to do a double take of the original comment to figure out why the other guy was offended.
It wasn't a "sarcastically pointing out the obvious" thing if that's what red is getting at.
Dakkadakka Horror Stories- Reprimanded and Banned for another's crimes!
Actually I think it was just a general warning- not specifically aimed at you Shadow Captain.
Back on topic... My ongoing horror story is that we just can't attract new members to the club. its been the same 6-7 people for the last year, and four of us are the club committee.
But on the bright side I'm getting painting commissions from the club, and I've never done commissions. 3 people want me to paint their zombicide and dread fleet board games minis.
Compel wrote: I think Gaming Stores fibbing is quite a common thing in order to eek out that one extra sale...
You are probably right on this. I have only had two flgs in my lifetime. The first one in the town I grew up would fleece you like this. The second one, which was where I live now, would send you to other buisnesses if the prices were a lot better than what he would offer. He had a real loyal base because of it. He gave painting, modeling and tool advice as well.
I was in an out of town store where the OWNER went to the bathroom on the floor and painted on the walls with it. Why? I don't know. Don't care. Got my rear out of there as fast as I could. But, it sounded like everyone's reaction like he had done that before. sooo disgusting.
I can't say I've ever come across a store making up gak to sell stuff. Even the GW's I've frequented, with their aggressive quotas, wouldn't comment on rumours or heresay and just present you with what was officially known about their product.
I can't see the point either. Once you're stung once they're unlikely to get you a second time, and if they tried, they'd find themselves quickly losing customers.
-Loki- wrote: I can't say I've ever come across a store making up gak to sell stuff. Even the GW's I've frequented, with their aggressive quotas, wouldn't comment on rumours or heresay and just present you with what was officially known about their product.
I can't see the point either. Once you're stung once they're unlikely to get you a second time, and if they tried, they'd find themselves quickly losing customers.
That's what I would think as well, but I don't think all store owners posses the maturity or insight to think of that. A LOT of FLGS close their doors due to owner mismanagement.
The owner's wife of a game store near me, who worked in the shop, told me several years ago that GW had gone out of business. This was while they were having a GW clearance sale, as the shop had decided to no longer carry GW products.
I played along, and I did pick up some heavily discounted figures, but I never went back there.
There's a local (now gone) I went to that was very accepting of everyone. The standards were basically: You don't have to be tidy, but you do have to bathe. You can get upset, but you can't get upset and swear at other customers or players.
All walks of life, from folks stopping off for a game on the way home from work, to very flamboyant, to the silent kids who mumble and are clearly there to find some peace.
But my God did it happen to be colourful horse central. Please do not use my post as a springboard for badmouthing a particular group. The reason I mention the hooved animals, is that they were the subject that two particular bellends came after me over. I daresay had their passions been Lego, they'd be just as capable of being tools about it.
I used to suffer pretty badly from being very shy and very stressed out of the blue, for a few years between Man Mailing His Pyjamas and finding a home to call my own out here. Going to tabletop tourneys was a safe thing for me, and going alone, I was nervous but okay.
So I'm mid-game in the store, and my partner had given me a small sealed pack pony as a joke gift before I set out. I unwrapped it, and put it on the map as an Heavy Object token because, well, it was funny. Other objects are things like dumpsters, lamp posts, meteorites, so why not? Thought nothing further of it.
Then I notice this early twenties girl circling, and circling, and then she sat down, staring at the toy.
"Is that yours?"
"Yeah."
"It's a CHASE figure. Do you-"
"Oh because it's pearly coloured?"
"Yeah, would you trade it for my swaps?"
"No. It was a present, I kinda feel like keeping it." (Not really, but you annoy me)
She then proceeded to spend the entire day trying to win me over, endlessly talking about how she was a "pegasister" and pretty much trailed me around the store, nearly following me into the bathroom because her eyes and mouth clearly couldn't engage at the same time.
("Unless you're going to hold something for me, this really is something I need to do alone.")
She gave me all her contact info and insisted we needed to meet up for drinks one night. I'm not sure exactly how oblivious she was, but from my other posts in this topic, you may conclude somewhere between "very" and "dangerously".
She never got my unicorn.
Another time, there was a small pink stuffed pony next to the map I was using, that again, had been a present. I thought he was pretty cute, the toy's face was this amusing cocky smirk, and the hair was curly like corkscrews. This is the depth of my thinking on the thing.
Apparently this was catnip to Captain Donkey Cave, and I was unaware. I was flicking this thing's hair and waiting for my opponent to arrive, and a very large man appeared at the table.
"I have a better pony than that." I gak you not. No "hi", he opens with this bizarre choice.
"Oh. I like him, he's got a nice face-"
"That's a GIRL pony you tard. Hey, I bet you didn't go to Pony Convention."
(Look of confusion)
(Man rips open his jacket to reveal convention t-shirt that is straining to hold in all of the... Joy... This man has to offer. He then show me his custom head phones with some kind of logo on them, and shoves his phone in my hands)
"Um."
"My piny is better, I won this standee in the charity auction!"
"I don't know what I'm looking at." (Man in fedora pointing at cardboard horse)
"You're not really a fething brony! How can you not know who that is? Jesus, you [disabled slurs] ." (This continued about how I was posing to be cool, and got less coherent)
I manage to get out, "I'm not any kind of brony." I'm sinking into my seat against a wall, being yelled at by a man twice my size in all dimensions and genuinely on the verge of crying because someone is yelling in my face and I can't leave.
"Damn right you're not! A real brony would know-"
"[SHOP OWNER] I HAVE A RULES QUERY." I wave to him from behind the mountain of Real Brony.
The shop owner (a very good friend) shambles over, and he takes one look at me, one look at the guy, and gives him a weekend ban for "this gak again."
I learned after a fashion that Real Brony was less a typical brony, and more a typical horrible person.
I learned after a fashion that Real Brony was less a typical brony, and more a typical horrible person.
Sorry that happened to you. I know a few people who are Bronies or "real" Bronies, and they do NOT act like that. I can't say if they are typical bronies or the abnorm. Not my thing really. The guild I am in within the game TERA is a pony guild (the before mentioned bronies). They are really a good group of fun, crazy people who don't push their likes onto others.
Yeah, my job involves a lot of close work with bronies. They're a tremendously accepting group. Charitable beyond belief too.
As I said, could have been any fandom, and they would have been just as bad.
"[SHOP OWNER] I HAVE A RULES QUERY." I wave to him from behind the mountain of Real Brony.
The shop owner (a very good friend) shambles over, and he takes one look at me, one look at the guy, and gives him a weekend ban for "this gak again."
I learned after a fashion that Real Brony was less a typical brony, and more a typical horrible person.
Bloody hell. Weekend ban? Why wasn't this towering champion given the boot permanently? Can't abide shops that tolerate similar behavior. Stinking out the place, harassing customers (I'd hate to be female and walking into one of these dungeons) or doing things that get you a good beating elsewhere seems to be allowed in certain local hobby stores. Some get awfully close to being a "Local Shop For Local People".
Reminds me of this story, which I will censor slightly (for forum decency and because I don't want a visit from Bane)
THE WRATH OF CAT P*** MAN
BY PAUL T. RIDDELL
- - -
It's a distasteful subject, not fit for family reading, but it's time. It's time to relate the origins of everyone's least favorite comic shop fixture, Cat Pee Man.
Back about three-quarters of a decade ago, I was a regular at a local comic shop in Dallas, and was yakking with the staff about the new issue of feth Science Fiction (yes, that was a real magazine, and I bawled like a baby went it went under) when I met my first Cat Pee Man. Ever comic shop in every city has at least one, all seemingly grown off this one like cuttings off jade plants. About six foot four he was, weighing in at least 200 kilos if an ounce, and the perfect cliche of the comics aficionado. The lank, greasy hair that wasn't long enough to tie back but also wasn't so short that it took care of itself without combing. The heavily abused "Marvel" T-shirt, with holes that suggested that cotton polyblend was the only fiber he got in his diet, since most of the rest was covered in a thick layer of Cheetos crumbs. Facial pores that suggested that gnomes sneaked into his bedroom in his parents' house and broke off the tips of No. 2 pencils in them. Beady little eyes behind Buddy Holly birth control glasses. If one's dental apparatus was a city, his mouth obviously took a direct hit with an H-bomb, and the mixture of nose hairs and crusted boogers protruding an inch past his nostrils and down his moustache guaranteed that he breathed through his mouth, producing a charitable impersonation of "The Creature From the Black Latrine". The last of the Olmec had taken to living in cliff dwellings in the shelter between his double chin and his gut, reasonably assured that nothing would disturb their mushroom and cave cricket farms.
However, Cat Pee Man's name was pure olfactory onomatopoeia. The first time I encountered him, he was walking up to the store door when one of the staff said "Oh God, it's Cat P*** Man." I was about ready to ask why he said that when Cat Pee Man stepped inside. Now, Texas heat has a tendency to make everyone exposed to it somewhat less than fresh, but this was the end of December, and his odor literally brought tears to my eyes. This wasn't a minor case of body odor: he literally smelled like a mile-wide overloaded litter box, left out in the Australian outback to cook in the sun, with enough power to kill a silk ficus. This stench wasn't just an affront to God, Satan, and Elvis: this was positively Lovecraftian in scope. I suddenly attained insane insights into the magazine distribution business, and I think a lack of available oxygen had something to do with it. Other customers would simply run the moment they saw him waddling toward the door, and he could clear the entire shop within seconds if the store's air conditioner wasn't on at full blast.
If this wasn't nauseating enough, his behavior was even more horrifying. Since this store didn't carry "adult" comics, he didn't disappear into the back area to spank off (to steal from the "Republicans Attack!" trading card set from Kitchen Sink, I doubt if he nor anyone else had seen his genitalia since 1984), so he felt compelled to follow people around. Someone would be reading the back copy on an issue of The Comics Journal when he'd come trucking over, not saying anything, and just kinda stare. Every time the customer would move away because Cat Pee Man was melting their Mylar baggies, he'd just follow along, not saying a word, and reposition himself like a corpulent vulture over a dying prospector. And Arioch help us all if the customer was female: Cat Pee Man would sidle over closer, trying to stun her with his natural perfume, and apparently he once tried to feel up one woman who wasn't able to get away fast enough.
The last time I ever saw Cat Pee Man, he was at a science fiction convention in Austin, Texas a few years back, hogging space in front of a dealer's table, doing the same thing. This time, he was dressed semi-formal, in a homemade Star Trek: The Next Generation uniform with a thick layer of human grease clogging the uniform's fabric in a band starting at his armpits and ending at the tops of his hips. He apparently couldn't afford or find a prop communicator pin, so he had one appliqued with Elmer's Glue-All and glitter, and the grease was making the symbol Peel free. For some reason, this made his assaults even more terrifying.
Oh, and did I mention that this guy almost never bought anything during his regular visits? Or if he did, he nitpicked everything in an effort to scam as much free stuff as possible?
Okay, so you think it's cruel to make fun of the socially challenged. We've all been there at one point or another in our lives (I cant' read one of Evan Dorkin's Eltingville strips without getting flashbacks of 1985, and when I remember how much I used to be like Bill from the Eltingville Club, I want to borrow a time machine just so I can kick my former self's ass into the next time zone), but this is different. This isn't making fun of someone different from us. This is explaining why so many people stay away from comic shops.
Let's put it another way. If Cat Pee Man were to act like this on the street toward random passersby, he'd probably get arrested or at least given a stern warning by a local cop. If Cat Pee Man were to do this at a restaurant, he'd be thrown out for bothering the customers. If Cat Pee Man were to do this at a nightclub, about eight big burly guys would take him out back and beat the gak out of him. If Cat Pee Man were even to smell like this in the Army, he'd get a good scrubdown with lye soap and wire brushes. (I had Cat Pee Man's brother in my Basic Training platoon in the Army, and we finally had to give him a blanket party a la Private Pyle in Full Metal Jacket to convince him that bathing and changing clothes were good things, because every other method simply didn't work.) In a comic shop, though, this isn't only tolerated, its example just acts as encouragement for others. Every time I mention Cat Pee Man to a comic shop owner, no matter where in the country the comic shop is located, s/he laughs and says "Oh yeah: he's in here all of the time." It's not the same guy (sometimes Cat Pee Man is skinny, and sometimes he actually combs his hair), but this new Cat Pee Man is a glob off the original.
I'm willing to concede that Cat Pee Man buys something every once in a while, and that we can't afford to alienate customers in this depressed market. However, even if his Mommy's allowance gave him the opportunity to buy $200 or more in comics and other goodies a week, Cat Pee Man drives off easily twice that many paying customers, who would come back to a comic shop again and again if they weren't subjected to nasal rape every time they walked inside. This also holds true for the "Tragic: This Gathering" players shrieking at the tops of their lungs in the back (that is, except in the comic shops where the owners realized that they lost less money in sales to card game players by closing the gaming areas than they lost from items that "liberated" themselves when the gamers left for the day), or the guy who pesters customers into buying loose action figures out front because the store owner didn't want a box of dog-chewed Spawn figures. And let's not forget the fanatics who threaten violence upon anyone who dares scoff at the idea of an Action Girl/Witchblade crossover event. Comic store owners just don't seem to realize the lesson that the shantytowns out in front of movie theaters for Star Wars: Episode One taught movie theater managers: the last thing most patrons wanted was to be harangued by some dork in a Jedi costume who had been living in it for the last four months, and the fear of even getting close to the "Episode One" line meant that customers didn't come to see other films, either.
And for those store owners and patrons who don't think that Cat Pee Man and his brothers are a problem, look at it this way. Imagine going into a pet shop in a world where every pet shop had a big, smelly incontinent St. Bernard in the back. The dog doesn't belong to the store: it's just some stray that comes in every day, eats straight out of the bulk dog food bins, drools all over the copies of Reptiles Monthly and Tropical Fish Hobbyist up front, molests the hamsters and dry-humps the legs of every customer that comes in, and doesn't contribute a thing to the operation of the store. If anything, it gets in the way of normal operation, and pet supply proprietors find that their business is directly affected by customer perceptions of the ordeal of trying to get around the St. Bernard gak piled around the front entrance. This world doesn't exist, although I've seen some pet shops that have come close. One of two things happen to pet shops like this: they go out of business, or the owner does an Old Yeller to the mangy beast and burns its carcass in a big bonfire out front.
The latter is what comic shop owners and managers need to do to their resident Cat Pee Man: throw the bums out. Don't joke about the stench or put on gas masks while Cat Pee Man is in the store, because he's spent years ignoring the comments of every other human about his appearance. Simply say "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave until you take a bath and leave the customers alone," and back it up. In the best scenario, he realizes that cleaning himself from time to time is at least as important as wearing pants, and comes back after realizing that his body isn't made from pure sodium and that soap and water don't necessarily burst into flame on contact. Otherwise, he'll throw a temper tantrum and stomp off to another comic shop; the other comic shop gets his pittance, and his old shop gets a whole passel of customers who apologize "I would have come in sooner, but that guy in here was melting the windows..." Either way, the problem is solved, and his old shop may even get a whole new contingent of customers who say "I used to go to that shop across town, but this guy who smells like he sleeps in a cat box came in and took over."
I'm not advocating setting up a dress code for comic shops, although I have to say that a dress code for comic shop managers and customers might not be a bad idea. (C'mon, guys: you don't need suits from Barneys, but have you ever wondered what people think when they see you behind the counter in sandals, ratty jeans, and a Lady Death T-shirt?) What I am advocating is considering the benefits of getting the shop Cat Pee Man to bathe or getting him to leave. And since none of the other customers are going to say anything, he's there until the store staff gets rid of him, and he'll cost you. Oh boy howdy, he'll cost you.
It's a distasteful subject, not fit for family reading, but it's time. It's time to relate the origins of everyone's least favorite comic shop fixture, Cat Pee Man.
Back about three-quarters of a decade ago, I was a regular at a local comic shop in Dallas, and was yakking with the staff about the new issue of feth Science Fiction (yes, that was a real magazine, and I bawled like a baby went it went under) when I met my first Cat Pee Man. Ever comic shop in every city has at least one, all seemingly grown off this one like cuttings off jade plants. About six foot four he was, weighing in at least 200 kilos if an ounce, and the perfect cliche of the comics aficionado. The lank, greasy hair that wasn't long enough to tie back but also wasn't so short that it took care of itself without combing. The heavily abused "Marvel" T-shirt, with holes that suggested that cotton polyblend was the only fiber he got in his diet, since most of the rest was covered in a thick layer of Cheetos crumbs. Facial pores that suggested that gnomes sneaked into his bedroom in his parents' house and broke off the tips of No. 2 pencils in them. Beady little eyes behind Buddy Holly birth control glasses. If one's dental apparatus was a city, his mouth obviously took a direct hit with an H-bomb, and the mixture of nose hairs and crusted boogers protruding an inch past his nostrils and down his moustache guaranteed that he breathed through his mouth, producing a charitable impersonation of "The Creature From the Black Latrine". The last of the Olmec had taken to living in cliff dwellings in the shelter between his double chin and his gut, reasonably assured that nothing would disturb their mushroom and cave cricket farms.
However, Cat Pee Man's name was pure olfactory onomatopoeia. The first time I encountered him, he was walking up to the store door when one of the staff said "Oh God, it's Cat P*** Man." I was about ready to ask why he said that when Cat Pee Man stepped inside. Now, Texas heat has a tendency to make everyone exposed to it somewhat less than fresh, but this was the end of December, and his odor literally brought tears to my eyes. This wasn't a minor case of body odor: he literally smelled like a mile-wide overloaded litter box, left out in the Australian outback to cook in the sun, with enough power to kill a silk ficus. This stench wasn't just an affront to God, Satan, and Elvis: this was positively Lovecraftian in scope. I suddenly attained insane insights into the magazine distribution business, and I think a lack of available oxygen had something to do with it. Other customers would simply run the moment they saw him waddling toward the door, and he could clear the entire shop within seconds if the store's air conditioner wasn't on at full blast.
If this wasn't nauseating enough, his behavior was even more horrifying. Since this store didn't carry "adult" comics, he didn't disappear into the back area to spank off (to steal from the "Republicans Attack!" trading card set from Kitchen Sink, I doubt if he nor anyone else had seen his genitalia since 1984), so he felt compelled to follow people around. Someone would be reading the back copy on an issue of The Comics Journal when he'd come trucking over, not saying anything, and just kinda stare. Every time the customer would move away because Cat Pee Man was melting their Mylar baggies, he'd just follow along, not saying a word, and reposition himself like a corpulent vulture over a dying prospector. And Arioch help us all if the customer was female: Cat Pee Man would sidle over closer, trying to stun her with his natural perfume, and apparently he once tried to feel up one woman who wasn't able to get away fast enough.
The last time I ever saw Cat Pee Man, he was at a science fiction convention in Austin, Texas a few years back, hogging space in front of a dealer's table, doing the same thing. This time, he was dressed semi-formal, in a homemade Star Trek: The Next Generation uniform with a thick layer of human grease clogging the uniform's fabric in a band starting at his armpits and ending at the tops of his hips. He apparently couldn't afford or find a prop communicator pin, so he had one appliqued with Elmer's Glue-All and glitter, and the grease was making the symbol Peel free. For some reason, this made his assaults even more terrifying.
Oh, and did I mention that this guy almost never bought anything during his regular visits? Or if he did, he nitpicked everything in an effort to scam as much free stuff as possible?
Okay, so you think it's cruel to make fun of the socially challenged. We've all been there at one point or another in our lives (I cant' read one of Evan Dorkin's Eltingville strips without getting flashbacks of 1985, and when I remember how much I used to be like Bill from the Eltingville Club, I want to borrow a time machine just so I can kick my former self's ass into the next time zone), but this is different. This isn't making fun of someone different from us. This is explaining why so many people stay away from comic shops.
Let's put it another way. If Cat Pee Man were to act like this on the street toward random passersby, he'd probably get arrested or at least given a stern warning by a local cop. If Cat Pee Man were to do this at a restaurant, he'd be thrown out for bothering the customers. If Cat Pee Man were to do this at a nightclub, about eight big burly guys would take him out back and beat the gak out of him. If Cat Pee Man were even to smell like this in the Army, he'd get a good scrubdown with lye soap and wire brushes. (I had Cat Pee Man's brother in my Basic Training platoon in the Army, and we finally had to give him a blanket party a la Private Pyle in Full Metal Jacket to convince him that bathing and changing clothes were good things, because every other method simply didn't work.) In a comic shop, though, this isn't only tolerated, its example just acts as encouragement for others. Every time I mention Cat Pee Man to a comic shop owner, no matter where in the country the comic shop is located, s/he laughs and says "Oh yeah: he's in here all of the time." It's not the same guy (sometimes Cat Pee Man is skinny, and sometimes he actually combs his hair), but this new Cat Pee Man is a glob off the original.
I'm willing to concede that Cat Pee Man buys something every once in a while, and that we can't afford to alienate customers in this depressed market. However, even if his Mommy's allowance gave him the opportunity to buy $200 or more in comics and other goodies a week, Cat Pee Man drives off easily twice that many paying customers, who would come back to a comic shop again and again if they weren't subjected to nasal rape every time they walked inside. This also holds true for the "Tragic: This Gathering" players shrieking at the tops of their lungs in the back (that is, except in the comic shops where the owners realized that they lost less money in sales to card game players by closing the gaming areas than they lost from items that "liberated" themselves when the gamers left for the day), or the guy who pesters customers into buying loose action figures out front because the store owner didn't want a box of dog-chewed Spawn figures. And let's not forget the fanatics who threaten violence upon anyone who dares scoff at the idea of an Action Girl/Witchblade crossover event. Comic store owners just don't seem to realize the lesson that the shantytowns out in front of movie theaters for Star Wars: Episode One taught movie theater managers: the last thing most patrons wanted was to be harangued by some dork in a Jedi costume who had been living in it for the last four months, and the fear of even getting close to the "Episode One" line meant that customers didn't come to see other films, either.
And for those store owners and patrons who don't think that Cat Pee Man and his brothers are a problem, look at it this way. Imagine going into a pet shop in a world where every pet shop had a big, smelly incontinent St. Bernard in the back. The dog doesn't belong to the store: it's just some stray that comes in every day, eats straight out of the bulk dog food bins, drools all over the copies of Reptiles Monthly and Tropical Fish Hobbyist up front, molests the hamsters and dry-humps the legs of every customer that comes in, and doesn't contribute a thing to the operation of the store. If anything, it gets in the way of normal operation, and pet supply proprietors find that their business is directly affected by customer perceptions of the ordeal of trying to get around the St. Bernard gak piled around the front entrance. This world doesn't exist, although I've seen some pet shops that have come close. One of two things happen to pet shops like this: they go out of business, or the owner does an Old Yeller to the mangy beast and burns its carcass in a big bonfire out front.
The latter is what comic shop owners and managers need to do to their resident Cat Pee Man: throw the bums out. Don't joke about the stench or put on gas masks while Cat Pee Man is in the store, because he's spent years ignoring the comments of every other human about his appearance. Simply say "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave until you take a bath and leave the customers alone," and back it up. In the best scenario, he realizes that cleaning himself from time to time is at least as important as wearing pants, and comes back after realizing that his body isn't made from pure sodium and that soap and water don't necessarily burst into flame on contact. Otherwise, he'll throw a temper tantrum and stomp off to another comic shop; the other comic shop gets his pittance, and his old shop gets a whole passel of customers who apologize "I would have come in sooner, but that guy in here was melting the windows..." Either way, the problem is solved, and his old shop may even get a whole new contingent of customers who say "I used to go to that shop across town, but this guy who smells like he sleeps in a cat box came in and took over."
I'm not advocating setting up a dress code for comic shops, although I have to say that a dress code for comic shop managers and customers might not be a bad idea. (C'mon, guys: you don't need suits from Barneys, but have you ever wondered what people think when they see you behind the counter in sandals, ratty jeans, and a Lady Death T-shirt?) What I am advocating is considering the benefits of getting the shop Cat Pee Man to bathe or getting him to leave. And since none of the other customers are going to say anything, he's there until the store staff gets rid of him, and he'll cost you. Oh boy howdy, he'll cost you.
Brilliant!
I've preached for a long time of the benefits of game stores being more self-policing when it comes to matters of hygiene and customer behavior. The comparison to how restaurants and other stores would handle such a person is particularly apt.
I'm pretty sure every FLGS/Comic store that is, was, and every will be has a least one Cat Pee Man.
My GW had 3.5*
When they were all in the store at once... my God, the only comparable experience is like being at Verdun in 1916 and not having a mask on when the mustard gas canister lands right next to you.
* The .5 is because one them apparently got a girlfriend and the next time we saw him a few months later he was odorless, groomed, clean shaven, and had even lost a couple pounds.
Compel wrote: One of my favourite was back in 5th edition a GW staffer trying to talk someone into buying a pyrovore.
Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote: I'm pretty sure every FLGS/Comic store that is, was, and every will be has a least one Cat Pee Man.
My GW had 3.5*
When they were all in the store at once... my God, the only comparable experience is like being at Verdun in 1916 and not having a mask on when the mustard gas canister lands right next to you.
* The .5 is because one them apparently got a girlfriend and the next time we saw him a few months later he was odorless, groomed, clean shaven, and had even lost a couple pounds.
Compel wrote: One of my favourite was back in 5th edition a GW staffer trying to talk someone into buying a pyrovore.
Pretty sure this is a Federal Crime in the US.
I have never understood people (particularly in the gaming community) who feel basic hygiene is not required. Seriously, would you go to a job interview, any other store, a restaurant, or anywhere else for that matter smelling like a sewer? Those who do, do they think they are Oscar the Grouch or that people have no sense of smell? How do these people know this behavior is unacceptable by pretty much any standard? I can understand if you are homeless, but some of these people smell worse than a homeless individual. And these people are NOT making it any easier for them to get a girlfriend. As a rule women don't like being around someone who smells like a sewer, and I don't blame them.
Before the local FLGS closed there was a guy who would come in from time to time who smelled so bad your eyes would start to water and you HAD to leave. The manager/owner actually had to ask the guy to leave and take a shower, and get clean clothes before he could come back.
I was about to post another story and realised its yet another about people inappropriately touching me, and I'm starting to wonder why I stay in this hobby.
There's a chemical that pregnant women release into their system to block out the pain of childbirth after the fact. I'm wondering if there's a gamer equivalent. It'd explain so much.
Buttery Commissar wrote: I was about to post another story and realised its yet another about people inappropriately touching me, and I'm starting to wonder why I stay in this hobby.
There's a chemical that pregnant women release into their system to block out the pain of childbirth after the fact. I'm wondering if there's a gamer equivalent. It'd explain so much.
Buttery Commissar wrote: I was about to post another story and realised its yet another about people inappropriately touching me, and I'm starting to wonder why I stay in this hobby.
There's a chemical that pregnant women release into their system to block out the pain of childbirth after the fact. I'm wondering if there's a gamer equivalent. It'd explain so much.
Buttery Commissar wrote: It's not legal here.
I mean neither is touching other people without consent, but the mace is a clearer issue.
I think this thread should be renamed to "Buttery finds yet another handsy scumbag". Sounds like you attract them
"Harry Potter Buttery and the Chamber of Repressed FLGS Incidents".
Basically I was in a new town for the day, and stopped over in a store to look at board games on the way to go home. Place was dead, and a guy in a badly fitting tracksuit and baseball cap follows me in. Already I'm getting the "he's come in here to make fun of the customers" vibe, so I ignore him.
He comes over, and the short of it was I made polite conversation and he suddenly starting hugging and kissing me whilst I tried to shove him away. He again, had a height and build advantage.
[He gets irritated] "I was just being friendly!"
"Stop!"
"Look, I'll walk you home, where do you live?"
[Complete confusion] "What? No! Bugger off you daft bastard!"
"Fine, Jesus. I was just being friendly!" [Storms out]
I turn to the shop staff who had been silently watching the entire time, hoping for some kind of assistance, and he just goes "Yeah that lad gets around a lot."
I try and keep them to the lighter weirdness, and about things that only affect me (or that I could have avoided with a little more awareness), as otherwise it feels like I'm just mocking the socially disadvantaged.
But there are some memories that are just straight up sad, and belie larger problems. Very few of which I can really share.
I used to game in the back room of a store at night, and one of our gamers was mentally disturbed. He'd quite obviously suffered some damage to the front of his brain, as his ability to rationalise, moderate or remain calm were severely diminished.
He would go from obsessively nice, to having ranting, table flipping episodes and believing everyone hated him.
Thankfully one of our members was a genuine psychologist and could calm him down. This was a private gaming group, the store owner would never have allowed us to mix with the general public.
Anyway, the guy was mostly harmless, and really cherished the fact I was nice to him (why would I not be?). Until he started buying me gifts. And talking to my parents (who would give us both a lift home each week to make sure he was safe) about going to dinner, and meeting his parents, and then there had to be an intervention. Turns out he believed we were a couple. I was blindsided.
Sad.
Another really quiet, demure young lad was unable to continue playing because he went to prison suddenly on one of those charges that makes something technically a crime, but everyone likely does it at some point. He ended up being reported out of spite.
He then couldn't come back, despite being very good company, because we had minors come in with their family on occasion.
So yeah, drunken vampires and being harassed by horse people are the things I can look back at and laugh.
Yeah, bad hygene is kind of easy pickings and does really feel like mocking.
Also, wow. I just can't compete with some of these, when all I've got is boilerplate "cliquish nerds are elitist" or "creepily flaunting having a girlfriend."
Another really quiet, demure young lad was unable to continue playing because he went to prison suddenly on one of those charges that makes something technically a crime, but everyone likely does it at some point. He ended up being reported out of spite.
He then couldn't come back, despite being very good company, because we had minors come in with their family on occasion.
Uh yea I think I need an elaboration on that? Am I the only one thinking it was some pedo related thing?
Those are also the ones I can make unidentifiably vague, or share without wondering where I stand legally.
I'm not out to hurt anyone, and the last thing I want is someone from a very specific incident being identified.
You know, I used to think I was the weird one at my FLGS. Then I read stories like the ones in this thread and I realize that I could be far, far worse.
Another really quiet, demure young lad was unable to continue playing because he went to prison suddenly on one of those charges that makes something technically a crime, but everyone likely does it at some point. He ended up being reported out of spite.
He then couldn't come back, despite being very good company, because we had minors come in with their family on occasion.
Uh yea I think I need an elaboration on that? Am I the only one thinking it was some pedo related thing?
More likely just the fact that he's got a record. You can't work for gw without a clean DBS check. Companies that deal with a large number of unattended children need to ensure that they maintain a safe environment much more vigilantly.
Another really quiet, demure young lad was unable to continue playing because he went to prison suddenly on one of those charges that makes something technically a crime, but everyone likely does it at some point. He ended up being reported out of spite.
He then couldn't come back, despite being very good company, because we had minors come in with their family on occasion.
Uh yea I think I need an elaboration on that? Am I the only one thinking it was some pedo related thing?
There can be a point in a highschool relationship where one teenager is "legally of age" and the other is legally not. If the minor lied about their age, didn't know, or care, etc.
Pretty sure this happens universally, and most teenagers involved get on with their lives.
But if one party were to report it, that would be a massive mess for all involved.
One night my local GW was open late because of a big apocalypse game being played in the store. A lady who had evidently had a few too many decided it would be a good idea to pop in, although I doubt she actually had any idea what shop she was walking into. I won't repeat what she said. The store manager told her to leave, but not before trying to get her to buy something.
Tainted wrote: One night my local GW was open late because of a big apocalypse game being played in the store. A lady who had evidently had a few too many decided it would be a good idea to pop in, although I doubt she actually had any idea what shop she was walking into. I won't repeat what she said. The store manager told her to leave, but not before trying to get her to buy something.
Where is the horror?
Sounds like a run of the mill GW store scenario.
Customer: "What's this gak? Toy soldier mans?"
GW Manager: "They are tabletop models that you build, paint and play games with. Would you like to try a game?"
Customer: "Feth that!"
GW Manager: "There's the door."
Knowing a guy who worked at a mall-based GW shop a few years ago, that kinda stuff happened on the regular.
Tainted wrote: One night my local GW was open late because of a big apocalypse game being played in the store. A lady who had evidently had a few too many decided it would be a good idea to pop in, although I doubt she actually had any idea what shop she was walking into. I won't repeat what she said. The store manager told her to leave, but not before trying to get her to buy something.
Where is the horror?
Sounds like a run of the mill GW store scenario.
Customer: "What's this gak? Toy soldier mans?"
GW Manager: "They are tabletop models that you build, paint and play games with. Would you like to try a game?"
Customer: "Feth that!"
GW Manager: "There's the door."
Knowing a guy who worked at a mall-based GW shop a few years ago, that kinda stuff happened on the regular.
Probably more along the lines of:
"I lost my panties!"
"Lady, please leave"
"Anybody want to start a gangbang?"
"Ma'am, I asked you to leave. Can I interest you in a Commissar Creed model first? He can do tactical insertions"
Tainted wrote: One night my local GW was open late because of a big apocalypse game being played in the store. A lady who had evidently had a few too many decided it would be a good idea to pop in, although I doubt she actually had any idea what shop she was walking into. I won't repeat what she said. The store manager told her to leave, but not before trying to get her to buy something.
Where is the horror?
Sounds like a run of the mill GW store scenario.
Customer: "What's this gak? Toy soldier mans?"
GW Manager: "They are tabletop models that you build, paint and play games with. Would you like to try a game?"
Customer: "Feth that!"
GW Manager: "There's the door."
Knowing a guy who worked at a mall-based GW shop a few years ago, that kinda stuff happened on the regular.
This happens in about every hobby store I think. The most annoying is when the drunk comes in with the express purpose of harassing the "nerds" inside. It is HILARIOUS when the guy starts hitting on a female gamer and the female gamer takes him out side to FIGHT him and mops the floor with him or rather in this case the concrete with his face. Lesson of the story is don't piss off an ex-marine who has her daughter with her in the store.
War Kitten wrote:You know, I used to think I was the weird one at my FLGS. Then I read stories like the ones in this thread and I realize that I could be far, far worse.
Yeah, me too. I know that I'm seen as a bit weird by some people, but some of these winners described in this thread take the cake.
Tainted wrote: One night my local GW was open late because of a big apocalypse game being played in the store. A lady who had evidently had a few too many decided it would be a good idea to pop in, although I doubt she actually had any idea what shop she was walking into. I won't repeat what she said. The store manager told her to leave, but not before trying to get her to buy something.
Where is the horror?
Sounds like a run of the mill GW store scenario.
Customer: "What's this gak? Toy soldier mans?"
GW Manager: "They are tabletop models that you build, paint and play games with. Would you like to try a game?"
Customer: "Feth that!"
GW Manager: "There's the door."
Knowing a guy who worked at a mall-based GW shop a few years ago, that kinda stuff happened on the regular.
Probably more along the lines of:
"I lost my panties!"
"Lady, please leave"
"Anybody want to start a gangbang?"
"Ma'am, I asked you to leave. Can I interest you in a Commissar Creed model first? He can do tactical insertions"
Maybe he could have upsold her a Tau Hammerhead.
"You'll like this one, it can usually get penetrating hits."
spiralingcadaver wrote: Yeah, bad hygene is kind of easy pickings and does really feel like mocking.
Also, wow. I just can't compete with some of these, when all I've got is boilerplate "cliquish nerds are elitist" or "creepily flaunting having a girlfriend."
I saw the last one at least once a month, if not more.
Vulcan wrote: Jeez, Buttery, we need to get you a bodyguard!
Buttery might need several.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Maybe he could have upsold her a Tau Hammerhead.
"You'll like this one, it can usually get penetrating hits."
Sorry...
This scenario turns really creepy when the lady in question has 3 teeth, a beard that puts Gandalf to shame, more hair than Chewbacca, and is propositioning 12 year olds (both boys and girls) saying, "I'll show you kids the time of your life for 10 bucks a piece."
When the manager offers to front the kids the money...yuk. No. Goodbye. NEVER going back. Glad I live out of state.
Vulcan wrote: Jeez, Buttery, we need to get you a bodyguard!
I found the other third of my body weight in a cereal box, and am substantially harder to kidnap now.
To counter all the awfulness I posted in this thread, I once attended a tournament in Fanboy3 in Manchester. I was attending on the way home from a trip across country, and I was in the middle of bottle-rearing a kitten. She was with me in her carrier, and I bundled that up in my own blankets and donated gamer jackets, and put her in the basement because people eat at FB3, and may have cat allergies.
So between games, I got her out, checked she was toasty, and fed her by syringe on one of the back tables. You've never seen so many grown men go from Serious Wargaming Mode to melting squeaking children as they crouched down ever so quietly and peer at the tiny kitten.
Just had an event last weekend that I thought was funny as hell, although my friend certainly didn't think so.
We'd just wrapped for the evening and were heading next door to the pizza place that has a pretty lively bar. We'd just stepped out the door of the flgs with gaming cases in hand when this guy kinda staggers right into us like a zombie with a crazed look in his eye. He moans something we can't make out and grabs my friend's open jacket with both hands...
Then proceeds to projectile vomit about a pitcher worth of beer and food right down the front of my friends shirt.
He staggers off leaving us completely slack jawed at what just happened, my friend is just staring ahead with this weird blank look as it takes him about two full minutes to process what happened. I'll admit I'm kind of a jerk because I start laughing my butt off while his face gets all rage twisted as he's trying to figure out if he wants to murder the guy or not. He's just standing there with a GW case in each hand, puke dripping off his chest, pants, and even his shoes. Finally some brain gear clicks into motion and he shouts "feth pizza! I'm going home!" turns around and stomps off to the parking garage to get his car.
It's been four days and he's still mad about it, for me it was absolutely hilarious and the fact he's still mad about it makes it even better.
paulson games wrote: Just had an event last weekend that I thought was funny as hell, although my friend certainly didn't think so.
We'd just wrapped for the evening and were heading next door to the pizza place that has a pretty lively bar. We'd just stepped out the door of the flgs with gaming cases in hand when this guy kinda staggers right into us like a zombie with a crazed look in his eye. He moans something we can't make out and grabs my friend's open jacket with both hands...
Then proceeds to projectile vomit about a pitcher worth of beer and food right down the front of my friends shirt.
He staggers off leaving us completely slack jawed at what just happened, my friend is just staring ahead with this weird blank look as it takes him about two full minutes to process what happened. I'll admit I'm kind of a jerk because I start laughing my butt off while his face gets all rage twisted as he's trying to figure out if he wants to murder the guy or not. He's just standing there with a GW case in each hand, puke dripping off his chest, pants, and even his shoes. Finally some brain gear clicks into motion and he shouts "feth pizza! I'm going home!" turns around and stomps off to the parking garage to get his car.
It's been four days and he's still mad about it, for me it was absolutely hilarious and the fact he's still mad about it makes it even better.
I feel bad for your friend but that's pretty funny
I use to go to a GW that had awesome employees. I say employees because everytime I went, someone new worked there. I wasn't a regular (only was in once every month maybe), but they were flying through employees like mad. I remember telling the last guy who worked there, "Dude, every time I come here, a new guy works here." He laughed casually and the next time I came, he was still there. He made a quick joke about it and that was that. Next time I wanted to go though, I was informed that the GW had closed.
Vulcan wrote: Jeez, Buttery, we need to get you a bodyguard!
I found the other third of my body weight in a cereal box, and am substantially harder to kidnap now.
To counter all the awfulness I posted in this thread, I once attended a tournament in Fanboy3 in Manchester. I was attending on the way home from a trip across country, and I was in the middle of bottle-rearing a kitten. She was with me in her carrier, and I bundled that up in my own blankets and donated gamer jackets, and put her in the basement because people eat at FB3, and may have cat allergies.
So between games, I got her out, checked she was toasty, and fed her by syringe on one of the back tables. You've never seen so many grown men go from Serious Wargaming Mode to melting squeaking children as they crouched down ever so quietly and peer at the tiny kitten.
Spoiler:
Your a cat fan you need this, cute and useful against he patriarchy!
If it is illegal get a smaller one and built it into a rhino or chimera
I really can't be bothered with cats (except, like, lions, leopards, tigers, that sort of thing), but kittens ... d'aaawwww.
I honestly can't think of anything like these sorry tales happening near me. There's some odd folk at my club that we laugh about that on reflection aren't really funny, but nothing I'm comfortable sharing.
I did watch a reasonably successful Facebook group dissolve over a weekend due to the actions of a couple of trolls; it even drove the group owner to quit in disgust. Name-calling, threats of legal action, harassment and violence via private message, and once the whole thing blew over, another idiot kicked it all off again with the "I don't think that deleting that thread was a good idea, because of 'transparency'" nonsense.
Except for the fact that all cats are evil and need to be exorcised, crucified, and have holy water, silver bullets and a stake through the heart applied to them without remorse, that is a seriously cute little kitten. Nice pic!
But I'm a dog person, and dogs are so much cooler.
Except for the fact that all cats are evil and need to be exorcised, crucified, and have holy water, silver bullets and a stake through the heart applied to them without remorse, that is a seriously cute little kitten. Nice pic!
But I'm a dog person, and dogs are so much cooler.
I'll never forget the wise words of a former colleague (who greeted the end of each working day with "another day closer to the box.") on owning a dog;
"the problem with a dog is that you can kick it to death and it will forgive you with its dying look."
Love that line, for the truth in it, and because it always makes me chuckle.
My god Buttery, you are a magnet of horrible stuff.
My favorite story has to be the kid who was so smug he was in winning. We agreed to play 1850. He only brought 1500 or so. I offered two options, let him borrow my marines to bring it to 1850, ot reduce mine. he chose neither, said he was good.
My god was he salty he was loosing so bad. I was pulling fully legitimate tactics, like my sternguard choosing to fail a test with combat tactics, therefore taking him out of charge range.
His father comes in and says "I hope you feel good beating someone with more points, cheater" thankfully the coordinator was there to set it straight.
paulson games wrote: Just had an event last weekend that I thought was funny as hell, although my friend certainly didn't think so.
We'd just wrapped for the evening and were heading next door to the pizza place that has a pretty lively bar. We'd just stepped out the door of the flgs with gaming cases in hand when this guy kinda staggers right into us like a zombie with a crazed look in his eye. He moans something we can't make out and grabs my friend's open jacket with both hands...
Then proceeds to projectile vomit about a pitcher worth of beer and food right down the front of my friends shirt.
He staggers off leaving us completely slack jawed at what just happened, my friend is just staring ahead with this weird blank look as it takes him about two full minutes to process what happened. I'll admit I'm kind of a jerk because I start laughing my butt off while his face gets all rage twisted as he's trying to figure out if he wants to murder the guy or not. He's just standing there with a GW case in each hand, puke dripping off his chest, pants, and even his shoes. Finally some brain gear clicks into motion and he shouts "feth pizza! I'm going home!" turns around and stomps off to the parking garage to get his car.
It's been four days and he's still mad about it, for me it was absolutely hilarious and the fact he's still mad about it makes it even better.
I feel bad for your friend but that's pretty funny
It's one of those things that's absolutely hilarious... unless it happened to YOU.
When I was stationed in Colorado, I was still fairly new to the hobby, and usually spent time looking for/visiting shops in the area. Luckily in Coloraod Springs, there were two shops that were almost nearly directly across the street from each other (on Academy)
So, my wife and I go into one of them, there's a huge, 400+ lbs. dude sitting at a computer in the corner behind the counter, playing Diablo. Doesn't pause the game, turn his head or any sort of acknowledgement that we existed. Then there was the "other guy" working at the store, he said something to us, but really he just mumbled incoherently and shuffled off away from us. He had a duncan Macleod pony-tail and was wearing calf length mocassins. Kinda ridiculous.
Anyhow, we're looking around, they have an amazing array of Reaper minis, a good board game selection, and a pretty good 40k/fantasy selection. It wasn't until the creepy, mental dude (a customer, not the first two guys who worked there) starts insistently showing me his magnetizing work on some terminators that the shop owner notices my wife and i. TBF she FINALLY notices that he's playing diablo, so they strike up a conversation about that, in which he says at near shouting volume that he wants to connect his computer's power to a treadmill so that he has to walk in order to play diablo at home, as a feeble attempt to lose weight.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to detach myself from the mental guy (seriously, he is physically leaning onto me, as if I'm the only reason he's standing up), with his funky smell and trying to talk all excitedly about his terminators.
Needless to say, once we left, we took our "permanent" business to the game shop across the street.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:Was the guy a gamer, or did he enter the store at any point?
AncientSkarbrand wrote:For doing what exactly?
He never entered the store, he came running down the street, got tackled and hit by a police.
I vote that if it has a chance of making people uncomfortable inside the game store it counts.
At our game store that closed it's doors we had a distraught special needs person come up and ask for money for food because he hadn't eaten in several days. All the other businesses in the area ran him off because they were afraid he would hurt their business. Myself and another person gave him the money we had which wasn't much and invited him into the store. Everyone in the store chipped in and the manager gave him some snacks to eat while we pooled our money for the man. We managed to scrape together around 400 dollars for him, and then several of us went with him to help him shop for groceries. It was truly horrific to see a community of otherwise good business owners let the issue of mental health impair their judgement in helping someone in need out.
The man unfortunately was kicked out of his home 4 weeks later because his caregivers didn't pay his rent as they were supposed to. He broke into a vehicle to stay warm during the cold winter night and froze to death. Kind of threw everyone in the store for a shock. He was a nice man who didn't get the care he deserved. So I guess the fact he was in the store sort of makes it a FLGS horror story.
Ensis Ferrae wrote: When I was stationed in Colorado, I was still fairly new to the hobby, and usually spent time looking for/visiting shops in the area. Luckily in Coloraod Springs, there were two shops that were almost nearly directly across the street from each other (on Academy)
So, my wife and I go into one of them, there's a huge, 400+ lbs. dude sitting at a computer in the corner behind the counter, playing Diablo. Doesn't pause the game, turn his head or any sort of acknowledgement that we existed. Then there was the "other guy" working at the store, he said something to us, but really he just mumbled incoherently and shuffled off away from us. He had a duncan Macleod pony-tail and was wearing calf length mocassins. Kinda ridiculous.
Anyhow, we're looking around, they have an amazing array of Reaper minis, a good board game selection, and a pretty good 40k/fantasy selection. It wasn't until the creepy, mental dude (a customer, not the first two guys who worked there) starts insistently showing me his magnetizing work on some terminators that the shop owner notices my wife and i. TBF she FINALLY notices that he's playing diablo, so they strike up a conversation about that, in which he says at near shouting volume that he wants to connect his computer's power to a treadmill so that he has to walk in order to play diablo at home, as a feeble attempt to lose weight.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to detach myself from the mental guy (seriously, he is physically leaning onto me, as if I'm the only reason he's standing up), with his funky smell and trying to talk all excitedly about his terminators.
Needless to say, once we left, we took our "permanent" business to the game shop across the street.
What store in the Springs? If it's what I'm thinking it is, I've been going there for about a year and a half. The staff is (mostly) really fun and nice, and the community is (mostly) fun and good guys, playing everything from 40k to Magic, DnD and Flames of War.
Few years back some buddies and me drove up to Nashville for the State MtG Tournament. Over 200 folks showed up, and the event stretched across the mall's hall from the main store to a larger, wider, deeper empty storefront.
At the beginning of the day, everything was going great. Unfortunately, the air conditioning at the front of the vacant store couldn't keep up with the mass of bodies. As long as you were winning you got to stay up front where it was nice and cool, but if you started to slip in the rankings you went farther and farther back where the heat and the smell of sweating, unwashed bodies got worse and worse. Have to say, it made one quite determined to win!
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:Was the guy a gamer, or did he enter the store at any point?
AncientSkarbrand wrote:For doing what exactly?
He never entered the store, he came running down the street, got tackled and hit by a police.
I vote that if it has a chance of making people uncomfortable inside the game store it counts.
At our game store that closed it's doors we had a distraught special needs person come up and ask for money for food because he hadn't eaten in several days. All the other businesses in the area ran him off because they were afraid he would hurt their business. Myself and another person gave him the money we had which wasn't much and invited him into the store. Everyone in the store chipped in and the manager gave him some snacks to eat while we pooled our money for the man. We managed to scrape together around 400 dollars for him, and then several of us went with him to help him shop for groceries. It was truly horrific to see a community of otherwise good business owners let the issue of mental health impair their judgement in helping someone in need out.
The man unfortunately was kicked out of his home 4 weeks later because his caregivers didn't pay his rent as they were supposed to. He broke into a vehicle to stay warm during the cold winter night and froze to death. Kind of threw everyone in the store for a shock. He was a nice man who didn't get the care he deserved. So I guess the fact he was in the store sort of makes it a FLGS horror story.
That's absolutely horrifying.
It speaks about gamers that you were the ones not to turn a blind eye, but it's not nearly enough of a positive to kill the "holy gak, no" in that story.
That's absolutely horrifying.
It speaks about gamers that you were the ones not to turn a blind eye, but it's not nearly enough of a positive to kill the "holy gak, no" in that story.
Yeah, that is kind of our reaction. The worst part is there are plenty of people who would have given shelter to the man if the man or the community would have known.
Not to mention we all gave pretty much everything we had on us. I know when some of the local business owners found out that the man was in their place of business and the employees didn't help the man, those employees were fired. The community wasn't too happy either at what the caregivers did either. The local DA tried to file charges but there apparently wasn't enough evidence of wrongdoing.
Thats not really fair to the employees. They might not have known if he was telling the truth, and could have been worried about losing their jobs. Was he already known to them and the local community? Did they have reason to believe or disbelieve his claims?
However, the right thing to do however would have been to call the Police and allowed the guy to remain in the shops where it was warm until they arrived. It was the Police's responsibility to deal with it - determining if he was telling the truth, and then contacting social services to arrange emergency accommodation.
I hope that somewhere along the line it made a difference or someone learned, or a policy changed, because otherwise that's heinously tragic and pointless.
Tying into gamers and kindness, and going back to saying about Bronies being charitable earlier in the thread, I ran a stall at a brony and biard game convention, and we had a charity box there for one of the community members who had suffered a stroke, and couldn't pay his medical bills.
It was a "give what you feel" thing with a small sign explaining his trouble. They filled and jammed the donation box by mid afternoon, and we had to get a second.
I feel in disaffected groups such as gaming, there's acute social awareness.
What store in the Springs? If it's what I'm thinking it is, I've been going there for about a year and a half. The staff is (mostly) really fun and nice, and the community is (mostly) fun and good guys, playing everything from 40k to Magic, DnD and Flames of War.
The bad one was Lace and something or other, or Faeries and fantasy, I don't remember...
The "good" store was probably the one you go to... room with the majority of tables have roll up garage doors from when it used to be an auto store, and when I went in there (for some reason, I never gamed there) they had pretty much every game I could have thought people play, but the biggest sections of the store were 40k/WHFB, Flames and DnD/PnP books. Back in 09, i basically shared a parking lot with an Arby's, and was very close to a Taco Bell as well (things may have changed since then)
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: Thats not really fair to the employees. They might not have known if he was telling the truth, and could have been worried about losing their jobs. Was he already known to them and the local community? Did they have reason to believe or disbelieve his claims?
However, the right thing to do however would have been to call the Police and allowed the guy to remain in the shops where it was warm until they arrived. It was the Police's responsibility to deal with it - determining if he was telling the truth, and then contacting social services to arrange emergency accommodation.
He WAS known in the area though not to us at the gaming store. There were instructions in several of the stores to be nice and let him stay there for a reasonable amount of time to be warm. And it was VERY obvious that he was challenged by both his actions AND his identifications. He was distraught this day not because he was cold, but because he was hungry and needed money for food. He could take care of himself well enough in some ways. He knew he needed food and shelter. He knew how to get food and cook for himself. He just lacked the means to do so, and he needed help shopping so as to get things he needed. From the way I understand things his caregivers were pocketing the money that was supposed to go to taking care of him. The landlord kept him as long as he could, but the rent hadn't been paid for 6 months.
I honestly wouldn't trust the police to do right by the man. The local police have a spotty record on such things. Throwing the man in jail for the day/overnight would not have helped things. We did not learn about these other issues he was having until after he passed and it was in the paper. When he was finally forced to leave his residence the landlord tried to contact authorities and the caregivers, but the man ran off.
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Buttery Commissar wrote: I hope that somewhere along the line it made a difference or someone learned, or a policy changed, because otherwise that's heinously tragic and pointless.
Tying into gamers and kindness, and going back to saying about Bronies being charitable earlier in the thread, I ran a stall at a brony and biard game convention, and we had a charity box there for one of the community members who had suffered a stroke, and couldn't pay his medical bills.
It was a "give what you feel" thing with a small sign explaining his trouble. They filled and jammed the donation box by mid afternoon, and we had to get a second.
I feel in disaffected groups such as gaming, there's acute social awareness.
There have been some policy changes to where the notification system is MUCH better now. And the places people can go is much better advertised, although sometimes tragedies still happen due to the person in trouble just being to proud to get help. Like my mother's former co-worker who passed in a similar fashion.
Individual gamers can be quite abrassive and repugnant and they often give the rest of us a bad name; but I think the gaming community at large is quite accepting and generous although often socially awkward. I think your observation about the gaming community at large is correct.
The story starts off with a store vs. store tournament. Our shop agreed to go to their shop and play the first round. It was 2 players on a team, 2,000 point list per team, standard brackets. We show up at the appointed time to start the tourney and the owner's wife is freaking out. All she would say was "This is not going to work, this is not going to work!" The tourney was on a Friday night and that was the usual night for MTG. She kept going on about it. "This is Magic night, you can't displace the Magic players!" She was saying other things that I can not repeat on here, but she did not know that I could hear her. It was really starting to annoy me. BADLY.
We finish the tourney and I took first (5th ed Blood Angels), got my prize and went outside to get away from her. Now the vast majority of us are 21 or older but there was like 2 of us that were underage. We decided to go to BW3's and BS about what happened instead of the bar that was right next door. I started it off by saying that that woman needed to calm down as she was treating us like garbage because we were playing 40k on a MTG night. HER HUSBAND SET IT ALL UP. We were all fairly PO'd by her actions and treatment of us. We decided that none of us would ever go there to play again.
About a year and a half later, my buddy gets into RC Cars. He wants to upgrade the bushings to bearings in the wheels and gears. We do a little calling around and find out that THAT shop had said bearings. I told him that the owners wife was a bit of a PITA but rather than order them online and have to wait 2 weeks ... lets just go there and get them. We go to the store and peruse the parts ( they sell models, RC Cars, boardgames, etc) and get what we need. Get to the register and he puts the bearings on the counter. The wife is running the register.
Now this part ... you just cannot make this gak up, she looks my buddy in the eye and says "Do you do magic?" He looks at her and I can see what he is thinking, 'Is she having a go at me? WTF is she on about? Is she serious? She IS serious.' His reply: I have no magical ability whatsoever.
I lose it ... I am doubled over laughing and I can't explain to him why this is so funny. There are MTG cards right in front of him, and he had never heard of the game. After explaining what she is asking about, she goes on a tirade about those "Magically Odorous Kids" Then it dawns on me ... she was mad because when we had our 40k tourney we took the basement and that put the MTG crowd upstairs in her general area... she didn't want to smell them all night. She told us that on Friday night she gets 3 of those battery air fresheners turned up to 11 for a room that is about 12x14 foot and that makes it bearable.
Except for the fact that all cats are evil and need to be exorcised, crucified, and have holy water, silver bullets and a stake through the heart applied to them without remorse, that is a seriously cute little kitten. Nice pic!
But I'm a dog person, and dogs are so much cooler.
I'll never forget the wise words of a former colleague (who greeted the end of each working day with "another day closer to the box.") on owning a dog;
"the problem with a dog is that you can kick it to death and it will forgive you with its dying look."
Love that line, for the truth in it, and because it always makes me chuckle.
Hey, some people want to have a pet, others evidently want to be a pet - because at the end of the day that's the reality, the cat owns you.
Except for the fact that all cats are evil and need to be exorcised, crucified, and have holy water, silver bullets and a stake through the heart applied to them without remorse, that is a seriously cute little kitten. Nice pic!
But I'm a dog person, and dogs are so much cooler.
Because I hand reared her, she never got the memo about being a jerk. The worst thing she does is race up the stairs to sit on the closed toilet lid, and headbutt you in the leg if you're using the bathroom sink. I have dropped my toothbrush many many times.
What store in the Springs? If it's what I'm thinking it is, I've been going there for about a year and a half. The staff is (mostly) really fun and nice, and the community is (mostly) fun and good guys, playing everything from 40k to Magic, DnD and Flames of War.
The bad one was Lace and something or other, or Faeries and fantasy, I don't remember...
The "good" store was probably the one you go to... room with the majority of tables have roll up garage doors from when it used to be an auto store, and when I went in there (for some reason, I never gamed there) they had pretty much every game I could have thought people play, but the biggest sections of the store were 40k/WHFB, Flames and DnD/PnP books. Back in 09, i basically shared a parking lot with an Arby's, and was very close to a Taco Bell as well (things may have changed since then)
Ah yep, that's the one I go to it's not perfect, but 80% of the time it's great
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:Was the guy a gamer, or did he enter the store at any point?
AncientSkarbrand wrote:For doing what exactly?
He never entered the store, he came running down the street, got tackled and hit by a police.
I vote that if it has a chance of making people uncomfortable inside the game store it counts.
At our game store that closed it's doors we had a distraught special needs person come up and ask for money for food because he hadn't eaten in several days. All the other businesses in the area ran him off because they were afraid he would hurt their business. Myself and another person gave him the money we had which wasn't much and invited him into the store. Everyone in the store chipped in and the manager gave him some snacks to eat while we pooled our money for the man. We managed to scrape together around 400 dollars for him, and then several of us went with him to help him shop for groceries. It was truly horrific to see a community of otherwise good business owners let the issue of mental health impair their judgement in helping someone in need out.
The man unfortunately was kicked out of his home 4 weeks later because his caregivers didn't pay his rent as they were supposed to. He broke into a vehicle to stay warm during the cold winter night and froze to death. Kind of threw everyone in the store for a shock. He was a nice man who didn't get the care he deserved. So I guess the fact he was in the store sort of makes it a FLGS horror story.
gak, that one hit me hard.
Whilst it does go to show that we gamers are an accepting and kind bunch the fate of that poor young man is terrible.
Yodhrin wrote: Hey, some people want to have a pet, others evidently want to be a pet - because at the end of the day that's the reality, the cat owns you.
John Wayne said it best in the movie True Grit: "No one can ever own a cat. The best you can do is room with 'em."
Matthew wrote: How many cats do you have, Buttery? I've seen them mentioned a lot of times here!
I've coincidentally mentioned them 2-3 times this week, but usually I'm not a crazy pet owner. I have two, and a third (pictured) lives here because I'm too soft to say no, and the alternative is she lives alone in an empty house.
I'll say this, I'm glad we discovered a good litter that truly contains the smell. I get my back exercise doing the boxes twice a day.
I don't know what its like in Aus, but I've literally never heard of not having a box for your cat. Mine is an outdoor cat; he comes and goes and probably poops outside, but we still have a box for him and he definitely uses it when he comes home.
Buttery Commissar wrote: [
Because I hand reared her, she never got the memo about being a jerk. The worst thing she does is race up the stairs to sit on the closed toilet lid, and headbutt you in the leg if you're using the bathroom sink. I have dropped my toothbrush many many times.
Nope - all this means is she is a cunning evil cat, who excels in infiltration. (even if she is pretty)
Stake through the heart I say. Have some silver bullets handy. Just in case.
Most people here have litter boxes in a corner of the home. That's not exactly unusual.
Mine are covered boxes that look like cat carriers, so I just pick the box up by the handle, and take it outside, dump the contents.
stanman wrote: How about less cats, more FLGS horror stories?
But a cat in a gaming store IS a horror story for some people.
Does a cat jumping up on the gaming table in middle of an apocalypse game knocking a Thunderhawk, Warhound, Fellblade, and several other models off the table breaking them before jumping down count?
stanman wrote: How about less cats, more FLGS horror stories?
But a cat in a gaming store IS a horror story for some people.
Does a cat jumping up on the gaming table in middle of an apocalypse game knocking a Thunderhawk, Warhound, Fellblade, and several other models off the table breaking them before jumping down count?
Unless this story ends with a deceased cat, I'd rather not hear it.
I was playing in an Apoc. game once. The guys on my side had a ton of titans, and we had agreed to group our Eldar revenants together as one large group. A guy from the other side needed to come to our side to move his models, leaning WAY over the side of the board. As he did his shirt caught a couple of the Revenants, causing a domino effect. Two Armorcast Revenants tipped back, tipping over a friend's Forgeworld Revenant and my scratch built Revenant, both of which slid off the side of the table. I had enough time to save one, and I chose my friend's Forgeworld piece do to the cost. My scratchbuilt one broke into 4 or 5 pieces. The only response from the guy that did it was "looks like you'll need some glue".
cuda1179 wrote: I was playing in an Apoc. game once. The guys on my side had a ton of titans, and we had agreed to group our Eldar revenants together as one large group. A guy from the other side needed to come to our side to move his models, leaning WAY over the side of the board. As he did his shirt caught a couple of the Revenants, causing a domino effect. Two Armorcast Revenants tipped back, tipping over a friend's Forgeworld Revenant and my scratch built Revenant, both of which slid off the side of the table. I had enough time to save one, and I chose my friend's Forgeworld piece do to the cost. My scratchbuilt one broke into 4 or 5 pieces. The only response from the guy that did it was "looks like you'll need some glue".
That lack of empathy from the player who caused the mishap, is what makes another player want to vault over the table, punch the guy in the face with car keys using them like spiked knuckles, and choke him til he turns blue and soils himself.
cuda1179 wrote: I was playing in an Apoc. game once. The guys on my side had a ton of titans, and we had agreed to group our Eldar revenants together as one large group. A guy from the other side needed to come to our side to move his models, leaning WAY over the side of the board. As he did his shirt caught a couple of the Revenants, causing a domino effect. Two Armorcast Revenants tipped back, tipping over a friend's Forgeworld Revenant and my scratch built Revenant, both of which slid off the side of the table. I had enough time to save one, and I chose my friend's Forgeworld piece do to the cost. My scratchbuilt one broke into 4 or 5 pieces. The only response from the guy that did it was "looks like you'll need some glue".
That lack of empathy from the player who caused the mishap, is what makes another player want to vault over the table, punch the guy in the face with car keys using them like spiked knuckles, and choke him til he turns blue and soils himself.
Totally. Any time there are tall, tipsy models near a board edge EXTREME caution is called for, which he didn't show. Even then I would have been relatively okay with it, as all he did was damage a scratch-build that cost me all of $20 and 10 hours of my time. That's easily fixed. The non-caring attitude is what made me pissed. If he had helped me gather the pieces, offered me some glue, and stated how sorry he was I'd have forgotten about it in seconds.
cuda1179 wrote: I was playing in an Apoc. game once. The guys on my side had a ton of titans, and we had agreed to group our Eldar revenants together as one large group. A guy from the other side needed to come to our side to move his models, leaning WAY over the side of the board. As he did his shirt caught a couple of the Revenants, causing a domino effect. Two Armorcast Revenants tipped back, tipping over a friend's Forgeworld Revenant and my scratch built Revenant, both of which slid off the side of the table. I had enough time to save one, and I chose my friend's Forgeworld piece do to the cost. My scratchbuilt one broke into 4 or 5 pieces. The only response from the guy that did it was "looks like you'll need some glue".
That lack of empathy from the player who caused the mishap, is what makes another player want to vault over the table, punch the guy in the face with car keys using them like spiked knuckles, and choke him til he turns blue and soils himself.
Totally. Any time there are tall, tipsy models near a board edge EXTREME caution is called for, which he didn't show. Even then I would have been relatively okay with it, as all he did was damage a scratch-build that cost me all of $20 and 10 hours of my time. That's easily fixed. The non-caring attitude is what made me pissed. If he had helped me gather the pieces, offered me some glue, and stated how sorry he was I'd have forgotten about it in seconds.
I'm the same way, if it's an accident and they feel bad about it, I'm rarely upset. There has been plenty of times that one of my CSM rhinos or something got slid off the table accidently. Always breaking some spikes without fail. So far, any time that it was my opponent's fault, They have always been incredibly sorry. After which, I pick it up, pull some glue outta my case to fix any serious damage and just shrug and say "battle damage builds up over 10,000 years" and put it back where it was. I've only had to replace all the spikes on one of my rhinos once, which considering how many times that one has ate the floor, its getting off pretty easy. That being said, If my opponents were ever so unapologetic as your opponent, I'd probably be much less polite about it.
I recently got in to xwing, and went for a demo game with my wife to a local store that, until a few days prior to my going, I had no idea even existed. The thought of another haven of geekery to visit had me excited for how awesome this place would be!
So, when I get to the store, I was more than a little surprised to literally hear - gods honest truth - the store owner telling his regulars to "feth off". Not once, but repeatedly. When I looked at him as though to say "what the hell?!" he simply said "don't worry about it, that's what my customers like. They like to be spoken to like that".
Looking around, the average age of his clientele was 16. I doubt they'd even settled on which deodorant they liked, let alone going along with being spoken to like that.
So, we sit down for our demo game. Apart from they don't have any demo kits. So I buy one without ever having played it, confident on reviews alone that I'd like the game. We assemble the pieces and get off to a good start. I'm still with the owner, who like everyone in the store, is just wearing jeans and a tshirt. No name badge or staff identifier at all. It'll become apparent later why this is important.
Cutting a real long story short, but keeping the important details -
- A tie fighter broke with the stand pin still lodged inside
- The store owner had left, this random guy (plain clothes, like the owner) to help me. I figured he was staff
- couldn't fix it, so went home and sent a message to store owner by Facebook
- Went back in some days later with the broken piece (UK Consumer Law classed it as faulty, and liable for a replacement from the manufacturer, which the retailer takes care of)
- Owner got SERIOUSLY gakky with me, shouting, swearing, generally being aggressive, again in front of his customers
It ended up getting sorted, but only after a good - I dunno - 10 days or so, and all that attitude of his just because he didn't know UK retail law. After seeing how he spoke to the customers that he seemingly liked, and then receiving that sort of "customer service", I think it's safe to say that I won't be going back again!
And that folks, is why I much prefer GW stores to independents!
With all these horror stories, I'm finding myself cringing at the behavior of some of the people telling the stories. How about trying to be assertive or proactive, rather than being a passive participant? I'm all of 5'8" and I'm almost always smiling when speaking with people. I haven't been in a fistfight since I was maybe 8 years old. But I never find myself in the position of allowing someone to speak to me in a disrespectful manner, touch me, break my possessions, or make me feel like I'm less.
If some of you are kids, I get it: it takes maturity and wisdom to learn to stand up for yourself. But if you're an adult, don't allow others to get away with acting in this manner.
Being treated badly, unexpectedly, and thrown out of your comfort zone, is how donkey-caves get away with being donkey-caves. There's often a psychological reaction of "Did that just happen? No? Yes? Err, what?" and unless you are a trained professional or an extraordinarily forward person, the vast majority of the time people will get away with abusing your trust the first time.
Especially in a "safe" environment that you chose to visit like a hobby store, where you expect a social camaraderie from fellow gamers.
Instead of "Fool me once..." Consider, "Jerk me about once..."
Being treated badly, unexpectedly, and thrown out of your comfort zone, is how donkey-caves get away with being donkey-caves. There's often a psychological reaction of "Did that just happen? No? Yes? Err, what?" and unless you are a trained professional or an extraordinarily forward person, the vast majority of the time people will get away with abusing your trust the first time.
Especially in a "safe" environment that you chose to visit like a hobby store, where you expect a social camaraderie from fellow gamers.
Instead of "Fool me once..." Consider, "Jerk me about once..."
And yet, I keep hearing the same victimhood stories overand over again from some posters in this thread. Someone's always making them uncomfortable, being creepy, or paying them unwanted attention. How about people take some responsibility for their own safety? This incessant need to feel safe and secure is the root of totalitarianism: the guarantee of security at the sacrifice of personal freedom.
The whole "what the feth just happened?" can really throw even the most elucid of individuals. It's kinda less comfort zone ish (aside from your 'defences' are maybe lowered) but it's more like a case of your brain completely failing to process what happened in a short timeframe.
Eventually the brain ends up catching up, usually by then it's too late.
Being treated badly, unexpectedly, and thrown out of your comfort zone, is how donkey-caves get away with being donkey-caves. There's often a psychological reaction of "Did that just happen? No? Yes? Err, what?" and unless you are a trained professional or an extraordinarily forward person, the vast majority of the time people will get away with abusing your trust the first time.
Especially in a "safe" environment that you chose to visit like a hobby store, where you expect a social camaraderie from fellow gamers.
Instead of "Fool me once..." Consider, "Jerk me about once..."
And yet, I keep hearing the same victimhood stories overand over again from some posters in this thread. Someone's always making them uncomfortable, being creepy, or paying them unwanted attention. How about people take some responsibility for their own safety? This incessant need to feel safe and secure is the root of totalitarianism: the guarantee of security at the sacrifice of personal freedom.
How do YOU propose people keep themselves safe? After the knife incident at my former FLGS, I got a concealed weapons permit because I had that option available to me. Not that many want to start problems with me at 6' 7". Not everyone is as big as me or live in a location where concealed carry is an option. Some people do everything they are supposed to and then some and are still victimized. It doesn't make them wrong, and it doesn't mean they did anything wrong. Female gamers shouldn't have to have an escort to go anywhere, and as far as I'm concerned FLGS's have an obligation to create a friendly, safe environment as my former FLGS tried to do. It doesn't mean things can't and won't happen, but it reduces the chances. You can't control another person's behavior either. Being a Donkey Cave to everyone in order to prevent being a victim is a poor solution as well. Really interested in knowing what socialably acceptable and legally acceptable measures YOU think everyone should be employing to keep safe.
The whole "what the feth just happened?" can really throw even the most elucid of individuals. It's kinda less comfort zone ish (aside from your 'defences' are maybe lowered) but it's more like a case of your brain completely failing to process what happened in a short timeframe.
Eventually the brain ends up catching up, usually by then it's too late.
There's a reason people say, "I'm stunned." :p
I agree with Buttery and you. And people should NOT be blamed for having that reaction. We all have that reaction to something at some time or another.
How do YOU propose people keep themselves safe? After the knife incident at my former FLGS, I got a concealed weapons permit because I had that option available to me. Not that many want to start problems with me at 6' 7". Not everyone is as big as me or live in a location where concealed carry is an option. Some people do everything they are supposed to and then some and are still victimized. It doesn't make them wrong, and it doesn't mean they did anything wrong. Female gamers shouldn't have to have an escort to go anywhere, and as far as I'm concerned FLGS's have an obligation to create a friendly, safe environment as my former FLGS tried to do. It doesn't mean things can't and won't happen, but it reduces the chances. You can't control another person's behavior either. Being a Donkey Cave to everyone in order to prevent being a victim is a poor solution as well. Really interested in knowing what socialably acceptable and legally acceptable measures YOU think everyone should be employing to keep safe?
Keep your head up, don't stare at your feet. Look at people when you first enter a room. Make eye contact. Be aware of your surroundings. If you're uncomfortable, remove yourself from a situation. Don't be afraid to be seen as rude and speak up if something bothers you. Use the fething buddy system. Any of these sound like a possibility?
Use a little critical thinking, dude. Obviously, I wasn't referring to someone pulling a knife out and threatening others with bodily harm. How rare is that in a gaming store? It's this "wilting violet" mentality where we ignore our surroundings, choose to be passive witnesses, and expect others to be responsible for making our experiences in life as painless as possible. An FLGS owner screams profanities, so I'll just keep shopping and pretend to ignore it. A creepy guy follows me around at a con, so I'll just try and politely rebuff him instead of possibly getting a (larger) friend or maybe security to ask him to stop. Some dude breaks my models and chuckles about it, but I just quietly accept his actions because I don't want to disrupt a game. This is what I'm talking about.
Also, good on you for getting a CCW. I hope you carry it responsibly every time you leave your home.
Keep your head up, don't stare at your feet. Look at people when you first enter a room. Make eye contact. Be aware of your surroundings. If you're uncomfortable, remove yourself from a situation. Don't be afraid to be seen as rude and speak up if something bothers you. Use the fething buddy system. Any of these sound like a possibility?
Use a little critical thinking, dude. Obviously, I wasn't referring to someone pulling a knife out and threatening others with bodily harm. How rare is that in a gaming store? It's this "wilting violet" mentality where we ignore our surroundings, choose to be passive witnesses, and expect others to be responsible for making our experiences in life as painless as possible. An FLGS owner screams profanities, so I'll just keep shopping and pretend to ignore it. A creepy guy follows me around at a con, so I'll just try and politely rebuff him instead of possibly getting a (larger) friend or maybe security to ask him to stop. Some dude breaks my models and chuckles about it, but I just quietly accept his actions because I don't want to disrupt a game. This is what I'm talking about.
Also, good on you for getting a CCW. I hope you carry it responsibly every time you leave your home.
You do realize that not everyone is, or can be as much of an alpha male as you apparently are, right?
You do realize that not everyone is, or can be as much of an alpha male as you apparently are, right?
That's.. Got nothing to do with being an alpha male. What army an is talking about is showing some confidence and standing up for yourself . And I for one agree with him.
You can be assertive without being a bellend. You can stand your ground without being hostile. And you can make a point without being aggressive.
Keep your head up, don't stare at your feet. Look at people when you first enter a room. Make eye contact. Be aware of your surroundings. If you're uncomfortable, remove yourself from a situation. Don't be afraid to be seen as rude and speak up if something bothers you. Use the fething buddy system. Any of these sound like a possibility?
Use a little critical thinking, dude. Obviously, I wasn't referring to someone pulling a knife out and threatening others with bodily harm. How rare is that in a gaming store? It's this "wilting violet" mentality where we ignore our surroundings, choose to be passive witnesses, and expect others to be responsible for making our experiences in life as painless as possible. An FLGS owner screams profanities, so I'll just keep shopping and pretend to ignore it. A creepy guy follows me around at a con, so I'll just try and politely rebuff him instead of possibly getting a (larger) friend or maybe security to ask him to stop. Some dude breaks my models and chuckles about it, but I just quietly accept his actions because I don't want to disrupt a game. This is what I'm talking about.
Also, good on you for getting a CCW. I hope you carry it responsibly every time you leave your home.
You do realize that not everyone is, or can be as much of an alpha male as you apparently are, right?
While you dont necessarily have to be a dick, he has a point.
People will walk all over you in life if you let them, and some people do let this stuff happen to them.
Does that mean grab the guy up by the collar and pin him to the wall? No. But you shouldn't be afraid to tell a jerk at the store to buzz off, or get help in a bad situation, or just straight up tell someone "Hey your behavior is completely unacceptable as a business owner."
I used to be extremely passive as well, but over time I learned that having a little spine and not putting up with gak will go a long way toward improving your life
Keep your head up, don't stare at your feet. Look at people when you first enter a room. Make eye contact. Be aware of your surroundings. If you're uncomfortable, remove yourself from a situation. Don't be afraid to be seen as rude and speak up if something bothers you. Use the fething buddy system. Any of these sound like a possibility?
Use a little critical thinking, dude. Obviously, I wasn't referring to someone pulling a knife out and threatening others with bodily harm. How rare is that in a gaming store? It's this "wilting violet" mentality where we ignore our surroundings, choose to be passive witnesses, and expect others to be responsible for making our experiences in life as painless as possible. An FLGS owner screams profanities, so I'll just keep shopping and pretend to ignore it. A creepy guy follows me around at a con, so I'll just try and politely rebuff him instead of possibly getting a (larger) friend or maybe security to ask him to stop. Some dude breaks my models and chuckles about it, but I just quietly accept his actions because I don't want to disrupt a game. This is what I'm talking about.
Also, good on you for getting a CCW. I hope you carry it responsibly every time you leave your home.
You do realize that not everyone is, or can be as much of an alpha male as you apparently are, right?
At no time did I claim to be an alpha, but I guess that's easier to paint me as an Internet tough-guy than to make a real, substantive counterpoint to the discussion, right?
@Deadnight and MrMoustaffa: Thank you for, at the very least, understanding my point.
I've found "interesting" ways to deal with rude guys, especially during Apoc. Games.
In larger scale Apoc games I take it as an opportunity to bring out my titans, as I rarely have a chance to use them (I stopped counting after my 30th, call me a hoarder). With that much dakka at my disposal I could quite literally take out a couple thousand points per turn, which could conceivably destroy a guy's entire army in the first half of turn 1, ensuring that his only participation was to set up and then remove models.
I have a personal rule to NEVER do that, but there have been a couple guys that have been bad enough to make me bend that rule. The previously mentioned guy that took out our side's elder Titans got a full round of D-strength goodness. I swear we laid at least 25 D strength templates, and a dozen or so Basilisk rounds onto his marine army and ONLY his marine army, objectives be damned.
He threw a fit about it, but hey, we left him with a single Razorback and a Devastator squad, so he wasn't completely left out the next 4 turns. (actually all he could do was move, as we were all out of range).
The thing is, there very much are people out there that, personal human interaction really is such a chore that something that many of us (myself included) take for granted, like making eye contact, is near impossible to do.
Simply telling these kinds of people to do that isn't very productive.
Yes, paying attention to your surroundings isn't an alpha thing to do, it's just a good habit to have.
As I read what armyman typed, to me, it read like a pretty alpha thing, over-simplifying actions that doesn't account for the variations in human personalities and "abilities"
Ensis Ferrae wrote: The thing is, there very much are people out there that, personal human interaction really is such a chore that something that many of us (myself included) take for granted, like making eye contact, is near impossible to do.
Simply telling these kinds of people to do that isn't very productive.
Yes, paying attention to your surroundings isn't an alpha thing to do, it's just a good habit to have.
As I read what armyman typed, to me, it read like a pretty alpha thing, over-simplifying actions that doesn't account for the variations in human personalities and "abilities"
Okay, then don't make eye contact, but do all those other things I said. If you're an introvert, have a friend who isn't. If you don't have any friends, buy A LOT of product at your FLGS so the owner knows you by name and will make sure you're taken care of if someone's giving you a problem. If you're tiny and weak, hang with a group of friends or one REALLY big one. Make up for your own shortcomings with common sense and a little help from other people.
Keep your head up, don't stare at your feet. Look at people when you first enter a room. Make eye contact. Be aware of your surroundings. If you're uncomfortable, remove yourself from a situation. Don't be afraid to be seen as rude and speak up if something bothers you. Use the fething buddy system. Any of these sound like a possibility?
I personally have never had a problem with this myself after high school (went to a really crummy one where certain people could do whatever they wanted and if you didn't let them you were facing suspension or expoltion so I just don't tolerate it now). I have seen people try to push others around in gamestores, and I just don't let that kind of thing go on. If no one is willing to stand up for or back the person being harassed, I will. No one deserves that kind of treatment. If what the person is doing can be construed as sexual harassment and said harasser swings at me, then I have no problem picking up and hurling the person out the door or through the storefront glass like a lawn dart.
These are not bad suggestions. Though sometimes the situation can change before you have a chance to do anything about it.
Its also by nature of where yo actually are. your in a store, if you go off on someone, even provoked, the owner/staff are also gonna think you did something.
Being treated badly, unexpectedly, and thrown out of your comfort zone, is how donkey-caves get away with being donkey-caves. There's often a psychological reaction of "Did that just happen? No? Yes? Err, what?" and unless you are a trained professional or an extraordinarily forward person, the vast majority of the time people will get away with abusing your trust the first time.
Especially in a "safe" environment that you chose to visit like a hobby store, where you expect a social camaraderie from fellow gamers.
Instead of "Fool me once..." Consider, "Jerk me about once..."
And yet, I keep hearing the same victimhood stories overand over again from some posters in this thread. Someone's always making them uncomfortable, being creepy, or paying them unwanted attention. How about people take some responsibility for their own safety? This incessant need to feel safe and secure is the root of totalitarianism: the guarantee of security at the sacrifice of personal freedom.
Wow, get a grip man. Folk have come in here and shared some pretty personal stuff, they don't need someone giving them crap for it.
Am I doing it right, are you feeling sufficiently stood up to yet, or does your utter hypocrisy need to be further pointed out?
hotsauceman1 wrote: Its also by nature of where yo actually are. your in a store, if you go off on someone, even provoked, the owner/staff are also gonna think you did something.
Well, for starters, you don't "go off on someone." Believe it or not, you can have a calm, non-threatening conversation with someone as long as both parties are mature adults. Sometimes this isn't possible, in which case that will become clear very quickly. At that point, you attempt to de-escalate and walk away. This isn't the streets, it's a gaming store. 99.9% of the time, nothing will happen to us when we're firm but civil.
Guys, I feel we should just agree to disagree. This topic has swung from amusing, to sad, to disturbing and back again.
Don't end up getting it shut down by the age old circular argument about where the responsibility lies.
The answer is both halves, but it's very hard to recondition either. It's not something that can be laid to rest overnight.
To clarify; When I said "safe" I was not referring to this recent term of avoidance and secure / designated spaces, I just meant "your home turf", a game store if you're a gamer. Like if I were a librarian, I'd feel comfortable in a library and confused in a bike shop.
Since the thread is going to be locked here soon anyway, I figure I'll toss my hat in:
Store I used to go to where I grew up had been there since the dawn of time (I'm pretty sure Jesus played RT there) and run by a guy who I'm fairly sure played soccer with god (he was that old).
The place was/is run down; it's got a great selection of so many different games and books and novelty items, but man...it's stuck in the 70s mid-renovation. The game room in the back isn't too bad, outside of the no-ceiling, paper-thin-walls, bathroom they have - which offers NO sort of buffer between what people do in there and the actual room. Zero ventilation means that...well, you all get the idea.
Had bad run ins with CCG players there, repeatedly. Used to play Warmachine back when it first came out and was at the store 3-4 nights a week. Turns out, the CCG (Yu-Gi-Oh, MtG, Pokemon,etc.) folks had the run of the place and no one ever told the rest of us. So, more often than not, we'd be in the middle of a game when the regiment of unwashed card players showed up. Had repeat issues with guys who tried to take our table between games, move our stuff when we weren't looking, even had a pair of kids try and walk out with parts of one of my armies. And yet, the owner gave zero feths, because CCG's made for a LOT of his revenue.
As for dealing with difficult situations, I get why it's hard; you're trained from birth to apologize and that it's better to just be a victim than do anything about what's going on. For some, it's literally a crippling experience because of whatever reason - something I pity, I guess. I can't sympathize because I've never had that issue - if you're a feth, I'll call you one. Not trying to sound all 'alpha male' but that's the way I am.
There's a difference between incapable of defending yourself and refusing to. I will help the former, the latter deserves every gakky experience they get.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: If we get to share stories from bars, I've got some real doozies. I'd start with a little gem I like to call "That's Not a Burrito."
I realize that might be off topic, but I have to hear that. So just replace all references to BAR with GAME STORE.
motyak wrote: Yeah let's move on from throwing people through glass windows and what not.
ALL GLORY TO OUR OVERLORDS.
In keeping with Motyak's request:
There was one time at ++LOCATION REDACTED, GLORY IN HIS NAME++ we were playing ++GAME NAME REDACTED, SUFFER NOT THE WITCH TO LIVE++ and the guy I was playing was acting like a ++ALSO REDACTED, KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, GUARD IT WELL++. So I decided to use my ++STILL REDACTED, HOPE IS THE LAST STEP ON THE ROAD TO DISAPPOINTMENT++ to counter his ++REALLY, STILL REDACTED, DON'T TAKE CANDY FROM BABIES++. My opponent got so mad he ++SUPER DUPER REDACTED, SO REDACTED WE CAN'T EVEN COME UP WITH A QUOTE++.
Needless to say, I'll never eat chinese food while playing ++NICE TRY, MEGA-ULTIMATE REDACTED++.
Buttery Commissar wrote: Guys, I feel we should just agree to disagree. This topic has swung from amusing, to sad, to disturbing and back again.
Don't end up getting it shut down by the age old circular argument about where the responsibility lies.
The answer is both halves, but it's very hard to recondition either. It's not something that can be laid to rest overnight.
To clarify; When I said "safe" I was not referring to this recent term of avoidance and secure / designated spaces, I just meant "your home turf", a game store if you're a gamer. Like if I were a librarian, I'd feel comfortable in a library and confused in a bike shop.
I agree that it's unfair to expect everyone to be emotionally ready to get in a confrontation with an aggressor. However, that's where the community as a whole can support each other. Some -sadly few, but some- of these stories contain the sorts of bystanders who step in when someone is being abused by a fellow gamer. If those who are emotionally able to stand up do so, the entire hobby will be a better place for all.
Note that by "Stand up" I don't mean "get into it". I mean firmly let the aggressor know that they are being in appropriate and will not be tolerated.
I must be lucky, or maybe I just don't play at stores often enough, but I'd never really had any bad experiences playing at stores. I did have one time where a guy was measuring too long for charging and saying "oops, let me gotta nudge them in a little bit so they can be in melee combat", that resulted in an eyeroll or 3 from me and a mental note not to play him again.
I also don't understand the bathing thing. I can kind of understand it a little bit if you're at a con and oversleep and are about to miss a game session you paid for.. but even then, if there's a risk of that happening to you, you can take a quickie shower before bed.
And please, for all that is good and holy in the world, do not attempt cover up your stank with patchouli.
Necros wrote: I must be lucky, or maybe I just don't play at stores often enough, but I'd never really had any bad experiences playing at stores. I did have one time where a guy was measuring too long for charging and saying "oops, let me gotta nudge them in a little bit so they can be in melee combat", that resulted in an eyeroll or 3 from me and a mental note not to play him again.
I'm sorta in this camp, too. Gamers are goobs, and there are always a few that end up being goobier than most, but it's all just harmless social anxiety and awkwardness. A couple people who want to talk a bit to intimately about their little plastic dudes and fantasy worlds, a few people who should probably invest in a couple new t-shirts a size or two larger, or ultra-competitive nerdgasmers who talk a little too loudly about their armylist or deck. It's sometimes annoying but rarely disruptive.
I also don't understand the bathing thing. I can kind of understand it a little bit if you're at a con and oversleep and are about to miss a game session you paid for.. but even then, if there's a risk of that happening to you, you can take a quickie shower before bed.
It only takes one guy or girl to really get the place funked up. The fact that most game store owners aren't particularly tidy just seems to add to the fragrant stew.
And please, for all that is good and holy in the world, do not attempt cover up your stank with patchouli.
And pine tree shaped car fresheners are NOT a substitute for bathing and deodorant. If anything it makes the smell worse. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little remembering this...
Necros wrote: I must be lucky, or maybe I just don't play at stores often enough, but I'd never really had any bad experiences playing at stores. I did have one time where a guy was measuring too long for charging and saying "oops, let me gotta nudge them in a little bit so they can be in melee combat", that resulted in an eyeroll or 3 from me and a mental note not to play him again.
I'm sorta in this camp, too. Gamers are goobs, and there are always a few that end up being goobier than most, but it's all just harmless social anxiety and awkwardness. A couple people who want to talk a bit to intimately about their little plastic dudes and fantasy worlds, a few people who should probably invest in a couple new t-shirts a size or two larger, or ultra-competitive nerdgasmers who talk a little too loudly about their armylist or deck. It's sometimes annoying but rarely disruptive.
I also don't understand the bathing thing. I can kind of understand it a little bit if you're at a con and oversleep and are about to miss a game session you paid for.. but even then, if there's a risk of that happening to you, you can take a quickie shower before bed.
It only takes one guy or girl to really get the place funked up. The fact that most game store owners aren't particularly tidy just seems to add to the fragrant stew.
You forgot to mention the buzzkill who always insists everybody let him in on their games or demands They play with him. We got this one guy everybody humors, but if anything is going on that doen't focus on him, he begins insiting people play board games with him, then if that deon't work he starts badmouthing what ever other people are doing. We also have another guy who is similar, but with RPGs.
The RPG guy completly ruined Halloween this past year. We were going to have a boardgame and wargame night, and he insisted people let him run a World War Cthulu campain, then he ran a session where there was no horror, just a lame rambling story about spys hanging out in a european village.
Re. The Stank, I found it was quite often neatly dressed guys dropping in after work on the way home for a quick game that brought the funk. I felt for them, as there's not a quick answer there.
IIRC The Grid in Doncaster has a shower room for this very reason, and it's maintained very well.
Buttery Commissar wrote: Re. The Stank, I found it was quite often neatly dressed guys dropping in after work on the way home for a quick game that brought the funk. I felt for them, as there's not a quick answer there.
IIRC The Grid in Doncaster has a shower room for this very reason, and it's maintained very well.
I imagine that the problem is no different than what a restaurant or bar could have. Smallish rooms, not usually very well ventilated, body heat builds up over an evening...with the main difference being that people in bars are too drunk to care much, and people in restaurants have a delightful curry to smell instead. If gamers want to defeat the funk, since most of us already shower every day, the next step is probably just better ventilation in shops.
The worst I had is very tame compared to these. When picking up my minis to clear the table for the RPG group coming in, one of the RPGers decided to help by grabbing several of my minis in one hand, popping one off the base. Fortunately, no lasting damage was incurred, and the other gamers in the group yelled at him for me. He apologized, and I went on my way.
Always put a finish on your minis, boys and girls. Protect your painted minis!
! I played there! I was one of the high schoolers that frequented the shop at the time. I can picture each one of these guys still. The leather bracer guy always gave me the creeps when he was there... Funny fact, the habitual liar (which he was completely) was right about one thing: he did have a nid army. It wasn't 50k points , but I know he had one cause I traded for it before I left for school. Check my sig. 
its been the same 6-7 people for the last year, and four of us are the club committee.
